m%  <     UC-NRLF 

/a' 7. 


S31    Dlfl 


UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 


TIDEWATER  MARYLAND 
AN  EMBAYED   COAST    PLAIN 


BY 

WALTER   LEFFERTS 


A  THESIS 

PRESENTED  TO  THE  FACULTY  OF  THE  GRADUATE  SCHOOL  IN 

PARTIAL  FULFILLMENT  OF  THE  REQUIREMENTS  FOR 

THE  DEGREE  OF  DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


INTERNATIONAL  PRINTING  COMPANY 

PHILADELPHIA 
1918 


GIFT   OF 


UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 


TIDEWATER  MARYLAND 
AN  EMBAYED   COAST   PLAIN 


BY 

WALTER  LEFFERTS 


A  THESIS 

PRESENTED  TO  THE  FACULTY  OF  THE  GRADUATE  SCHOOL  IN 

PARTIAL  FULFILLMENT  OF  THE  REQUIREMENTS  FOR 

THE  DEGREE  OF  DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


INTERNATIONAL  PRINTING  COMPANY 

PHILADELPHIA 
1918 


COPYRIGHT  1918 
BY  WALTER  LEFFERTS 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 

Page 

I.  General  Description 5 

II.  Physical  Controls: 

1.  Surface  and  Soil 7 

2.  Climate 12 

III.  Industrial  History 16 

IV.  Population 21 

V.  Present-Day  Industries  and  Resources : 

1.  Agriculture    27 

(a)  Southern  Maryland 27 

(b)  Eastern  Shore  Wheat  Region 31 

(c)  Eastern  Shore  Truck  Region 34 

2.  Fisheries 37 

3.  Forest  Industries 42 

4.  Mineral  Industries   45 

5.  Manufacturing 48 

VI.  Transportation: 

1 .  Water  Transportation 52 

2.  Land  Transportation   55 

(a)  Railroads 55 

(b)  Roads 57 

VII.  Influence  of  the  Bay  and  Future  Development 62 

MAPS. 

Opposite  Page 

1.  Tidewater  Maryland.     Principal  Divisions 5 

2.  Communities  of  Tidewater  Maryland 21 

3.  Counties  of  Tidewater  Maryland 27 

4.  Steamboat  Routes  of  Tidewater  Maryland 52 

5.  Railroads  of  Tidewater  Maryland 55 


MAP    1.       TIDEWATER   MARYLAND.      PRINCIPAL   DIVISIONS. 


I.  GENERAL  DESCRIPTION. 

A  line  drawn  from  Washington  to  Baltimore  and  on  toward 
Wilmington,  Delaware,  will  cut  the  State  of  Maryland  into  two 
almost  equal  portions,  the  eastern  and  slightly  larger  one  of 
which  is  the  Coast  Plain,  often  called  Tidewater  Maryland.  This 
Washington-Baltimore-Wilmington  line  is  the  famous  "Fall 
Line,"  where  the  rivers  descending  from  the  upland  meet  tide- 
water ;  it  marks  the  point  of  contact  between  two  regions  of  very 
different  geological  age  and  physical  composition,  the  ancient 
Piedmont  and  the  recent  Coast  Plain,  the  first  composd  chiefly  of 
hard  crystalline  rock,  the  second  entirely  of  soft  sedimentary 
material. 

Though  the  Coast  Plain  of  Maryland  is  but  a  small  part  of 
that  great  lowland  which  fringes  the  Atlantic  and'  Gulf  Shores 
of  the  United  States  from  New  York  Bay  to  the  Mexican  border, 
in  actual  land  surface  it  covers  over  5000  square  miles,  an  area 
exceeding  that  of  Connecticut.  By  a  partial  drowning  of  the 
region,  the  sea  has  flowed  into  the  ancient  valley  of  the  Susque- 
hanna,  thus  forming  Chesapeake  Bay,  which  occupies  the  heart 
of  the  Plain,  and  by  converting  the  lower  courses  of  the  tribu- 
taries into  estuaries,  has  made  the  region  typically  embayed.  The 
Maryland  portion  of  the  Chesapeake,  with  its  numerous  estuaries, 
thus  gives,  within  the  Plain,  a  water  area  of  more  than  2000 
square  miles,  over  40  per  cent,  as  large  as  the  Plain's  land  surface. 
This  embayment  has  profoundly  affected  the  life  of  the  inhabi- 
tants on  both  sides  of  the  Bay.  It  is  a  striking  geographic  con- 
trol. 

The  two  parts  into  which  the  Bay  cuts  the  Plain  have  been 
distinguished  from  early  colonial  times  as  the  Eastern  Shore  and 
the  Western  Shore,  the  mass  of  the  Western  Shore,  lying  south 
of  Baltimore,  being  now  commonly  called  Southern  Maryland. 
The  Eastern  Shore  is  the  larger  of  the  portions,  containing  60 
per  cent,  of  the  Plain,  or  3200  square  miles,  while  the  whole 
Western  Shore  comprises  only  2100  square  miles.  Though  much 
alike  in  some  respects,  other  factors  have  caused  these  two  sec- 
tions to  differ  greatly  in  development. 

(5) 


6  Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

This  account  purposes  to  present  the  geographic  factors 
which  have  operated  as  controls  over  the  economic  life  of  Tide- 
water Maryland,  and  to  show  the  extent  of  the  responses  to 
these  controls,  which  shape  the  habits,  industries  and  develop- 
ment of  the  people.  The  study,  in  short,  offers  a  geographic 
basis  for  the  Maryland  Coast  Plain's  social  and  economic  history 
and  gives  some  foundation  for  a  prediction  of  its  future. 


II.  PHYSICAL  CONTROLS, 
i.  SURFACE  AND  SOIL. 

Tidewater  Maryland  is  not  only  embayed,  it  is  also  terraced. 
Four  terraces,  composed  of  comparatively  loose  and  soft  materi- 
als, gravels,  sands,  silts  and  clays,  greatly  mixed  in  many  spots, 
were  formed  during  the  intermittent  rise  of  the  Plain  from  the 
ocean.  Without  consideration  of  the  terracing,  many  features 
of  this  region  could  not  be  satisfactorily  explained.  The  net  re- 
sult is  to  present  at  different  heights  considerable  areas  of  level 
land,  well  adapted  to  the  use  of  agricultural  machinery  and  with 
a  minimum  of  erosion. 

As  the  Plain  slopes  from  the  Fall  Line  southeastward  to 
the  Atlantic,  the  Western  Shore  is  composed  almost  entirely  of 
the  upper  two  terraces,  while  only  the  lower  two  are  represented 
on  the  Eastern  Shore.  The  two  portions  of  Tidewater  Mary- 
land, therefore,  differ  in  surface. 

Southern  Maryland  has  a  maximum  elevation  of  320  feet,  or 
four  times  that  of  the  Eastern  Shore.  Its  soft  materials  have 
been  eroded  in  numerous  places  along  the  edges  of  the  terraces, 
especially  near  the  Bay,  so  that  the  surface  there  is  abruptly  hilly. 
The  central  portions  of  the  terraces,  however,  are  still  unaffected, 
and  much  of  the  original  material  has  been  able  to  change  grad- 
ually into  loam  which  remains  in  place.  There  is  little  low 
ground.  Only  about  3  per  cent,  of  the  whole  section  is  marsh 
or  swamp.  Ten  per  cent,  more  is  comprised  in  the  meadows  of 
the  flat  "forelands"  lying  along  many  of  the  channels,  such  as  the 
Patuxent  (the  main  waterway  intersecting  the  region).  These 
meadows,  while  not  usually  drained  enough  for  tillage,  are  of 
the  utmost  value  as  pasture,  and  invite  a  large  cattle  industry. 
Along  the  Bay,  where  the  waves  have  eaten  well  into  the  ter- 
races, the  generally  elevated  character  of  Southern  Maryland  is 
shown  by  cliffs  which  extend  for  many  miles,  ranging  up  to  150 
feet  and  forming  a  striking  feature  of  the  Chesapeake  scenery. 

The  Eastern  Shore  is  much  lower  and  much  less  diversified 
than  Southern  Maryland.  Its  upper  terrace  is,  at  its  greatest 

(7) 


8  Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

elevation,  in  the  north,  only  about  80  feet  high,  and  slopes  down 
to  30  feet.  This  terrace  covers  practically  all  of  the  Shore  which 
is  directly  west  of  Delaware  and  sweeps  around  below  the  south- 
ern Delaware  boundary.  It  is  not  so  high  as  to  afford  much 
opportunity  for  erosion,  yet  it  is  elevated  enough  to  secure  good 
drainage  over  most  of  its  extent.  Here  is  an  area  of  700,000 
acres  of  excellent  and  yet  rather  light  farm  land,  free  from 
stones  and  almost  entirely  level,  as  pleasant  and  as  profitable  to 
work  as  any  in  the  East — a  choice  region  indeed.  The  lower 
terrace  of  the  Eastern  Shore,  whose  bulk  lies  south  of  the  Chop- 
tank  River,  contains  much  marsh  and  swamp.  Its  soils  are  not  so 
loamy  as  those  of  the  upper  terraces,  but  are  predominantly 
sandy,  though  there  are  large  areas  of  clay  just  south  of  the 
Choptank. 

Two  general  regions  can  thus  be  distinguished  on  the  East- 
ern Shore,  the  north  and  the  south,  the  north  mostly  upland,  the 
south  largely  lowland.  Both  regions  are  intersected  by  many 
tributaries  to  the  Chesapeake  and  deeply  indented  by  their  estu- 
aries; but  while  the  Sassafras  and  Chester  Rivers  of  the  north 
have  fairly  high  banks,  the  southern  rivers,  the  Choptank,  the 
Nanticoke  and  the  Pocomoke,  are  mostly  bordered  by  marsh  or 
swamp.  Though  the  two  regions  are  about  equal  in  size,  the 
northern  section  has  3  per  cent,  of  its  area  undrained,  the  south- 
ern section  about  30  per  cent.1 

Though  the  Atlantic  coast  of  the  Eastern  Shore  is  unbroken, 
and  the  long  line  of  cliffs  in  the  southern  Bay  coast  of  the  West- 
ern Shore  is  remarkably  regular,  the  Eastern  Shore's  Bay  coast, 
particularly  in  its  more  exposed  southern  part,  where  the  Bay  is 
wider,  is  distinguished  by  numerous  fancifully-cut  peninsulas, 
due  largely  to  the  drowning  of  the  region,  and  many  islands 
formed  by  wave-cutting  of  the  peninsulas.  While  the  islands 
themselves  and  the  exposed  points  and  headlands  are  being  rap- 
idly cut  away  by  the  waves  caused  by  the  westerly  winds,  which 
blow  across  the  wide  Bay  during  the  greater  part  of  the  year,2  the 

! 

1  Md.   Conservation   Commission :   Report.     Bait.,    1909 ;   p.   138. 

2  For  an  interesting  discussion  of  the  rapidity  of  this  action,  see  Hunter, 
J.  Fred:    "Erosion  and  Sedimentation  in  Chesapeake  Bay,"  U.  S.  Geol.  Sur. 
Profes.  Paper  90.    Wash.,  1915;  pp.  7-15. 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain  9 

same  winds  are  causing  sediment  to  be  heaped  at  the  mouth  of 
the  southern  estuaries,  where  eastward  current-wash  checks  the 
stream-flow  of  the  large  rivers.  Great  salt  marshes,  two  or 
three  miles  wide  in  many  places,  are  thus  being  formed. 

On  account  of  the  many  waterways,  coast  indentations  and 
marshes,  communication  by  land  in  Tidewater  Maryland  is  still 
often  so  tedious,  even  between  places  situated  near  together  in 
an  air  line,  that  water  travel  is  almost  forced  upon  the  inhabitants. 
Navigation  is  possible  to  a  considerable  distance  up  the  numerous 
estuaries  and  streams,  and  ease  of  water  transport  has  had  much 
to  do  with  the  course  of  development. 

On  the  whole,  the  Plain's  surface  is  such  that  by  its  level 
nature  and  generally  good  drainage  it  is  distinctly  favorable  to 
agriculture.  Though  Southern  Maryland,  because  of  its  higher 
elevation,  excels  in  picturesqueness,  and  in  completeness  of 
regional  drainage,  the  Eastern  Shore  carries  off  the  agricultural 
advantage  because,  despite  many  swamps,  it  surpasses  Southern 
Maryland  in  its  larger  extent  of  level,  yet  well-drained  land, 
practically  free  from  erosion.  The  Eastern  Shore  farmer  can 
raise  tilled  crops  without  taking  precaution  lest  the  best  of  his 
farm  should  be  carried  down  the  hillside.  On  neither  shore  does 
the  surface  present  any  real  obstacle  of  ruggedness  to  the  builders 
of  road  or  railroad,  though  swamps,  marshes  and  bodies  of  water 
do  afford  considerable  hindrance. 

The  Bay  manifests  itself  as  one  of  the  most  active  agencies 
in  changing  the  surface.  Its  waves  cut  away  the  high  shores, 
change  peninsulas  into  islands,  and  then  devour  the  islands.  To 
compensate  for  this  destruction,  however,  it  builds  up  the  tide 
marshes  that  hold  the  richness  lost  from  the  uplands.  It  is  both 
a  destructive  and  a  constructive  factor,  and  its  importance  as  a 
geographic  control  must  be  fully  appreciated. 

The  large  amount  of  marsh  and  swamp  land  in  the  Plain 
makes  reclamation  a  problem  that  should  engage  the  serious  at- 
tention of  the  State.  Nearly  one-tenth  of  the  Plain,  325,000 
acres  at  least,  is  of  this  description.3  This  area  of  500  square 


3  Maryland  Weather  Service  Report.     Bait,   1907;  p.  24. 


io          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

miles  is  now  only  a  breeding  place  for  mosquitoes  and  a  conse- 
quent reservoir  of  malaria.  The  mosquito  plague  for  some  rea- 
son is  not  nearly  so  great  as  the  area  of  badly  drained  land 
would  seem  to  imply,  yet  the  health  of  the  Plain,  especially  in  the 
southern  part  of  the  Eastern  Shore,  would,  no  doubt,  be  consid- 
erably improved  if  the  lowland  could  be  reclaimed. 

Reclamation,  however,  is  not  at  present  an  absorbing  in- 
terest in  Maryland,  although  it  has  received  some  attention.4 
Practically  nothing  has  been  done,  either  by  public  or  private 
enterprise,  to  drain  the  wet  lands,  and  until  the  rural  population 
grows  denser,  it  is  unlikely  that  much  will  be  accomplished, 
especially  in  the  salt  marshes,  which  form  two-thirds  of  the  total 
low  area.  The  upland  tracts,  however,  which  can  be  drained 
more  easily,  will  add,  before  the  passage  of  many  years,  nearly 
120,000  acres  of  exceedingly  rich  land  to  the  State's  agricultural 
service. 

Even  without  the  aid  of  reclamation,  it  may  be  said  that  the 
soils  of  the  Plain  allow  it  to  run  the  entire  gamut  of  classes  of 
agricultural  production.  There  are  sands  for  the  trucker,  gen- 
eral purpose  soils  (light  loams)  for  cereals  and  canning  crops, 
and  heavy  soils  for  cattle  raising  and  dairying.  There  are  few 
regions  which  present  such  a  satisfactory  amount  of  each  type 
of  soil  within  such  a  limited  area. 

ADDITIONAL  REFERENCES. 
Surface. 

1 .  Abbe,  Cleveland,  Jr. :  "A  General  Report  on  the  Physiog- 
raphy of  Maryland."     Md.  Weather    Service   Report,    Vol.    i. 
Baltimore,  1899.     Pp.  74-114. 

2.  For    detailed    treatment    of    the    terraces  of  Tidewater 
Maryland,  see  Clark,  William  Bullock,  and  Mathews,  Edward 
B. :    "Physiography  of  Maryland,"  in  Md.  Geol.  Sur.  "Report 
on  the  Physical  Features  of  Maryland."    Baltimore,  1906.    Pp. 


4  Conservation  Commission  of  Md. :  Report,  sup.  cit,  pp.  137-144. 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          il 

3.  U.  S.  Geological  Survey:    Maps  covering  entire  region, 
scale  gasoo,  as  follows: 

Eastern  Shore:  Elkton,  Cecilton,  Betterton,  Barclay,  Ches- 
tertown,  Denton,  St.  Michaels,  Hurlock,  Oxford,  Sharps  Island, 
Nanticoke,  Crapo,  Salisbury,  Pittsville,  Ocean  City,  Green  Run, 
Snow  Hill,  Princess  Anne,  Deal  Island,  Crisfield,  Bloodsworth. 

Western  Shore :  Havre  de  Grace,  Gunpowder,  North  Point, 
Baltimore,  Relay,  Laurel,  Annapolis,  Owensville,  Washington, 
Prince  Frederick,  Brandywine,  La  Plata,  Drum  Point,  Leonard- 
town,  Wicomico,  Point  Lookout,  Piney  Point. 

4.  County  maps  based  upon  the  above,  issued  by  Md.  Geol. 
Sur.  (Charles  County  omitted). 

5.  U.  S.  Geol.  Survey:   Maps,  scale  TTSTTITF,  as  follows: 
Dover,  Del.  (covers  Cecilton  and  Barclay  sheets  mentioned 

above). 

Choptank  (covers  St.  Michaels,  Annapolis,  Oxford,  and 
Sharps  Island  sheets). 

Patuxent  (covers  Owensville,  Washington,  eastern  part, 
Prince  Frederick,  and  Brandywine  sheets). 

St.  Mary's  covers  Crapo,  Drum  Point,  Bloodsworth,  and 
Point  Lookout  sheets). 

Nomini  (covers  Leonardtown,  Wicomico,  and  Piney  Point 
sheets). 

Tolchester  (covers  Betterton,  Gunpowder,  Chestertown, 
and  North  Point  sheets). 

6.  U-  S.  Geol.  Sur.,  Geologic  Folios: 

No.     13.  Fredericksburg,  Va.,    1894 

No.     23.  Nomini,  1896 

No.   136.  St.  Marys,  1906 

No.   137.  Dover,  Del.,  1906 

No.   152.  Patuxent,  1907 

No.  182.  Choptank,  1912 

No.  204.  Tolchester,  1917 

Soils. 

i.  Md.  Geol.  Sur.:  "Report  on  Physical  Features  of  Mary- 
land," sup.  cit,  pp.  212-216. 


12          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

2.  Shreve,  Forrest,  and  Chrysler,  M.A.,  in  Md.  Weather 
Service,  Vol.  3,  "The  Plant  Life  of  Maryland,"  sup.  cit,  pp. 
101-151. 

3.  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Soils:   Soil  Surveys  as  follows,  covering 
nine  out  of  thirteen  entire  counties  included  in  Tidewater  Mary- 
land, and  parts  of  two  others: 

Western  Shore:  St.  Marys  County,  1900;  Calvert  County, 
1900;  Hartford  County,  1901;  Prince  Georges  County,  1901; 
Anne  Arundel  County,  1909. 

Eastern  Shore:  Cecil  County,  1900;  Kent  County,  1900; 
Worcester  County,  1903;  Easton  Area  (Queen  Anne,  Talbot, 
and  Caroline  Counties),  1907. 

These  soil  surveys  include  material  on  surface,  climate  and 
agriculture  of  the  regions  described. 

4.  Md.  Geol.  Sur. :  Volumes  describing  the  respective  coun- 
ties of  Calvert   (1907),  Cecil   (1902),  St.  Marys   (1907),  and 
Prince  Georges  (1911),  in  which  the  material  on  soils  is  repub- 
lished  from  the  U.  S.  Soil  Surveys,  topography  is  described  at 
length,  and  the  economic  resources  of  the  counties  covered  in 
general. 

5.  Whitney,   Milton :    "Truck  Lands  of  the   Atlantic  Sea- 
board," in  U.  S.  Ag.  Yearbook,  1914,  pp.  139-142. 

2.  CLIMATE. 

Tidewater  Maryland  lies  far  enough  south  to  have  the  ad- 
vantage of  a  long  growing  season.  Two-thirds  of  the  region  lies 
below  the  latitude  of  Washington,  stretching  between  sixty  and 
seventy  miles  south  of  that  line,  while  even  the  northern  third 
enjoys  the  same  situation  as  that  of  the  extreme  south  of  the  New 
Jersey  Coast  Plain,  famous  for  its  trucking  and  general  farming. 

In  the  northern  part  of  the  Maryland  Plain  the  average 
growing  season  for  tender  crops  is  about  six  months,  and  in  the 
southern  part  about  seven  months,  from  early  April  to  near  the 
middle  of  November.  This  long  growing  season  allows  of  a 
variety  and  a  succession  of  crops.  In  the  opening  of  spring  the 
extreme  southern  portion  leads  the  extreme  northern  by  about 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          13 

three  weeks,  but  the  closing  of  the  growing  season  comes  more 
nearly  together  in  the  two  portions.5 

The  climatic  mildness  of  the  more  southern  part  of  the 
Plain  is  marked.  It  bears  a  flora  which  is  distinctly  apart  from 
that  of  the  North.  The  loblolly  pine  here  reaches  its  northern 
limit,0  the  Southern  cypress  is  abundant  on  the  lower  Eastern 
Shore,  the  fig  ripens  its  fruit  in  open  air,  and  the  crepe  myrtle 
unfolds  its  beautiful  pink  blossoms,  which  are  so  characteristic 
of  Norfolk  and  Charleston  streets  in  summer.  About  1 700  cotton 
was  even  raised  in  this  section,  and,  mixed  with  the  native  wool, 
was  manufactured  into  clothing.7  The  truckers  of  the  southern 
counties  of  the  Eastern  Shore  are  able  to  get  two  crops  of  white 
potatoes  a  year,  the  early  ones  for  market,  the  later  for  home 
use.  They  also  raise  great  amounts  of  the  tender  sweet  potato, 
which  cannot  endure  frost.  In  the  south  of  the  Plain  there  are  not 
usually  found  large  barns  and  well-protected  barnyards  like 
those  of  the  Maryland  Piedmont.  The  winters  on  the  whole  are 
so  mild  and  sunny  that  cattle  are  given  no  other  shelter  than  that 
afforded  by  the  lee  of  a  shed  or  stack,8  though  they  would  do 
much  better  if  proper  barns  were  provided.  Along  the  meadows 
of  the  Patuxent  River  there  is  almost  constant  grazing  through 
the  winter.9  Plowing  is  quite  common  in  December  and  January. 

Much  has  been  made,  by  certain  writers,  of  the  mitigating 
effect  of  the  Bay  upon  both  the  winter  and  summer  temperature 
of  the  Plain.  In  considering  this  point,  we  must  note  that  the 
winds  received  by  the  Plain  are  usually  from  the  northwest  in 
winter  and  the  southwest  in  summer,  and  that,  therefore,  East- 


"Walz,  F.  J. :  "Meteorology  and  Climatology  of  Maryland,"  in  Md. 
Weather  Service  Report.  Bait.,  1899;  Vol.  i,  p.  487.  Also  Fassig,  Oliver  L. : 
"The  Period  of  Safe  Plant  Growth  in  Maryland  and  Delaware."  Bull.  Am. 
Geog.  Soc.  N.  Y.,  Aug.,  1914;  p.  589;  and  McLeon,  Forman  T. :  "Relation 
of  Climate  to  Plant  Growth  in  Maryland,"  U.  S.  Monthly  Weather  Review, 
Aug.,  1914. 

8  Shreve,  Forrest :  "The  Ecological  Plant  Geography  of  Maryland,"  in 
Md.  Weather  Service,  Vol.  3,  p.  105,  sup.  cit. 

7  Morriss,  Margaret  Shove:    "Colonial  Trade  of   Maryland,   1689-1715." 
John  Hopkins  University  Studies,  Series  32,  No.  3,  p.  70. 

8  Blodgett,  Frederick  H. :  "The  Agricultural  Features  of  Maryland,"  in 
Md.  Weather  Bureau,  Vol.  3,  sup.  cit.,  p.  307. 

"U.  S.  Soil  Survey,  Calvert  County,  1900;  p.  167. 


14          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

ern  Shore  receives  much  more  of  the  Bay's  influence,  whatever  it 
be,  than  does  Southern  Maryland. 

Upon  examination  of  the  actual  records  of  temperature  it  is 
found  that  the  Bay's  influence  on  Southern  Maryland  is  slight, 
and  as  far  as  the  prevailing  westerly  winds  are  concerned,  is  con- 
fined there  to  a  few  peninsulas.  The  western  part  of  the  Eastern 
Shore,  however,  is  considerably  affected.  It  is  cooled  in  general 
by  the  Bay's  influence,  from  January  to  August  inclusive.  Far 
from  having  an  earlier  spring  on  account  of  the  Bay,  as  many 
accounts  allege,  its  spring  is  made  later  by  the  presence  of  the 
water.  During  April,  May  and  June  the  water  of  the  Bay  at 
most  hours  is  colder  than  the  surrounding  air  by  an  average  of 
nearly  six  degrees.10  Protection  from  early  spring  frosts,  even 
along  the  water-front,  is  therefore  not  to  be  relied  upon.  Peach 
growers  on  the  water-side  have  found  that  the  rows  of  trees 
nearest  the  water  are  sometimes  frosted  at  blossom-time  while 
the  rest  of  the  orchard  is  spared.  In  the  later  spring,  however, 
when  the  days  grow  warm,  but  the  nights  are  still  chilly,  the 
presence  of  the  Bay,  absorbing  the  heat  throughout  the  day  and 
giving  it  out  at  night,  does  moderate  night  temperatures  and  pre- 
vent late  frosts  or  even  deleterious  chilling  of  tender  crops. 
Therefore  the  water-front  opposite  Annapolis,  where  not  occu- 
pied by  beautiful  homes,  is  in  great  demand  by  truckers  and 
orchardists. 

In  summer  the  cooling  "sea-breezes"  from  the  Bay  are  felt 
on  both  shores  on  many  nights,  and  so  many  resorts  are  scattered 
along  the  Bay  within  easy  reach  of  Baltimore  that  the  ocean 
front  of  Maryland  has  but  one  such  place  (Ocean  City)  in  forty 
miles.  Autumn  and  early  winter  are  decidedly  warmer,  how- 
ever, on  the  Eastern  Shore  than  elsewhere  in  Maryland,  because 
of  the  Bay.11  Thus  the  water  influence  on  the  whole  is  decidedly 
favorable  to  agriculture  and  to  human  comfort. 

Rainfall  is  of  good  amount,  being  nearly  44  inches,  about 

10  Fassig,  Oliver  L. :  "The  Climate  of  Baltimore,"  in  Md.  Weather  Service 
Johns  Hopkins  University  Studies,  Series  32,  No.  3,  p.  70. 

Report,  sup.  cit,  Vol.  2,  p.  147. 

11  Walz,  F.  J. :  "Meteorology    and    Climatology    of    Maryland,"    in    Md. 
Weather   Service  Report,  Bait.,   1899;   Vol.   I,  p.  479.     Also  U.  S.  Weather 
Bureau,  Bull.  Q,  "Climatology  of  U.  S.,"  1901,  and  Bull.  U,  1912,  Sec.  95. 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          15 

the  same  as  in  Southern  New  Jersey,  but  less  than  in  Tide- 
water Virginia.  There  is  no  essential  difference  in  precipitation 
between  the  Eastern  and  the  Western  Shores,  but  on  account  of 
the  proximity  of  large  bodies  of  water,  Tidewater  Maryland 
as  a  whole  does  receive  about  five  inches  more  of  rainfall  annually 
than  does  the  Maryland  Piedmont. 

The  distribution  of  rainfall  throughout  the  year  is  remark- 
ably uniform,  though  the  greatest  amount  of  rain  falls  during 
the  growing  season.  On  the  average  there  are  two  days  of  every 
week  when  precipitation  occurs.  Drought,  however,  in  summer 
often  afflicts  the  crops,  particularly  the  truck  on  sandy  soils,  and 
irrigation  would  be  a  desirable  agricultural  feature. 

The  climate  of  Tidewater  Maryland  not  only  favors  gen- 
eral farming,  but  is  especially  advantageous  to  the  trucker.  The 
early  maturity  of  crops  enables  the  trucker  to  market  his  produce 
in  even  the  Piedmont  of  his  own  State,  where  the  season  is  some- 
what later.  Moreover,  by  reason  of  its  southern  situation,  the 
Maryland  Plain  has  a  truck  season  of  its  own  in  the  great  north- 
ern markets  within  easy  reach.  It  supplies  these  markets  after 
the  Norfolk  truck  on  the  south  is  done  and  before  the  New  Jersey 
Plain  on  the  north  can  come  into  competition.  The  trucker  has 
truly  found  his  paradise  in  the  lower  Eastern  Shore,  where  the 
heat  is  not  so  great  as  to  discourage  labor,  but  where  his  ad- 
vantage over  his  more  northern  brother  is  marked. 

Population  has  already  begun  to  increase  fast  in  the  distinct- 
ively trucking  portion  of  Tidewater  Maryland.  The  climate  of 
the  entire  Maryland  Plain  is  so  generally  favorable,  however,  that 
as  it  is  not  yet  densely  settled,  it  should  offer  a  desirable  home  for 
farmers  from  more  northern  regions.  With  the  development  of 
transportation,  all  the  climatic  factors  that  favor  agriculture  and 
make  life  outdoors  pleasant  during  a  great  part  of  the  year  must 
inevitably  have  their  weight  in  drawing  immigrants  to  the  parts 
of  the  Plain  which  now,  because  of  unskilful  farming,  too  much 
dependence  on  tobacco,  or  poor  means  of  transport,  are  losing  in- 
stead of  gaining. 

NOTE. — The  climatic  features  of  various  regions  are  dis- 
cussed in  the  U.  S.  Soil  Surveys  and  the  county  reports  of  the 
Md.  Geol.  Sur.,  referred  to  in  the  previous  chapter. 


III.  INDUSTRIAL  HISTORY. 

As  Tidewater  Maryland  was  embayed,  access  by  water  to 
almost  any  portion  of  it  was  safe  and  easy,  and  it  was  one  of  the 
first  regions  in  this  country  to  be  permanently  settled,  but  the 
first  colonists  were  satisfied  to  inhabit  the  extreme  southern  part 
of  the  province,  immediately  across  the  Potomac  from  Virginia, 
and  separated  by  only  a  small  peninsula  from  the  main  Bay. 

The  choice  of  the  Western  Shore  rather  than  the  Eastern 
was  doubtless  due  to  the  uninviting  aspect  of  the  flat  marshes 
on  the  right  as  the  settlers  sailed  up  the  Bay  in  1634.  At  St. 
Mary's  in  Southern  Maryland  the  shores  rose  bold  from  the  har- 
bor, and  the  bordering  low  terrace  offered  a  favorable  site  for 
building  and  cultivation.  Once  settled,  the  new  Marylanders 
found  not  only  surface  but  also  climate  and  soil  distinctly  favor- 
able to  their  enterprise. 

With  land  both  cheap  and  productive,  the  Marylanders  could 
not  help  being  agriculturists;  yet  in  taking  up  their  land  they 
were  careful  to  stick  close  to  the  water.  The  Bay  shaped  the 
life  of  the  colony.  By  it  supplies  were  brought  from  the  mother 
country  and  the  planter's  produce  taken  away.  Its  many  arms 
arid  inlets,  while  making  intercourse  by  land  difficult  or  tedious, 
offered  smooth  roads  to  sail  and  oar.  Its  waters  supported  vast 
beds  of  shellfish,  innumerable  shoals  of  fish,  "millionous  multi- 
tudes" of  fowl,  not  to  speak  of  crabs  and  terrapin,  which  were 
little  regarded.  No  wonder  that  the  planter  stayed  where  both 
land  and  water  could  supply  his  needs. 

The  bold  shores  of  the  numerous  indentations  of  the  estu- 
aries gave  opportunity  for  each  important  planter  to  have  his 
own  wharf.  The  comparatively  small  ships  of  that  early  day 
could  come  to  his  very  door,  bringing  European  goods  in  return 
for  his  crops.  •  Thus  towns  were  not  needed  as  centers  of  ex- 
change; a  town  might  serve  as  a  place  for  the  transaction  of  legal 
business  or  public  affairs,  but  nothing  more.  St.  Marys,  the  first 
capital,  languished  and  died  in  spite  of  its  excellent  situation,  for 
the  Bay  scattered  commerce  instead  of  causing  it  to  concentrate. 

Although  the  town  was  conspicuously  absent  in  early  Mary- 
(16) 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          17 

land,  the  planters  were  by  no  means  isolated.  Never  was  there  a 
more  social  community.  The  Bay  swarmed  with  small  craft, 
which  bore  frequent  visitors  to  every  family.  Hospitality  was 
easy  to  practice  with  the  Bay  ready  to  yield  its  wonderful  stores 
of  food,  easier  to  gain  than  the  game  of  the  forest  or  the  grain  of 
the  field.  Life  under  such  circumstances  was  friendly  and 
pleasant,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  colony  grew  rapidly. 

As  the  embayment  of  Tidewater  Maryland  made  it  easy 
for  a  fleet  of  English  ships  (numbering  over  one  hundred  in 
1721 )  to  visit  the  colony  each  summer,12  and  there  was  a  market 
in  Europe  for  tobacco,  Maryland  followed  Virginia  in  making 
that  product  its  money  crop.  So  much  tobacco  was  planted  that 
the  Assembly  had  to  make  special  laws  to  force  the  production 
of  grain,  which  was  becoYning  neglected.  Naturally  there  soon 
appeared  an  over-production  of  tobacco,  but  this  did  not  cause 
much  curtailment  of  its  cultivation.  Even  the  exhaustion  of  the 
once  rich  soil  by  this  gross-feeding  crop  did  not  shake  the  fond- 
ness of  the  planter  for  it.  Tobacco  needed  much  hand  labor, 
and  thus  fastened  slavery  upon  the  colony. 

The  mother  part  of  the  Plain,  Southern  Maryland,  the 
part  least  affected  by  modern  transportation,  retains  on  this  ac- 
count its  old  preoccupation  with  tobacco,  which  does  not  demand 
swift  carriage.  It  still  has  a  strong  tinge  of  Catholicism  derived 
from  its  founder,  mingled  with  Episcopalianism  derived  from 
Tidewater  Virginia.  This  conservatism  in  religion  is  typical  of 
conservatism  in  other  respects.  Much  of  its  ancient  aspect  is 
retained.  The  mansions  of  the  original  tobacco-planting  aris- 
tocracy remain,  and  the  ox  still  hauls  its  tobacco  to  the  steam- 
boat wharf.  The  Civil  War  broke  up  the  real  or  seeming  pros- 
perity of  the  great  estates  or  manors  with  their  slave  labor,  but 
did  not  destroy  the  conservatism  of  the  region.  Isolated  from 
the  northern  cities  by  the  organization  of  its  land  and  water 
routes,  carrying  on  all  its  commerce  through  Baltimore,  it  has 
remained  Southern  in  its  sentiment  and  in  its  mode  of  agricul- 


12  Gould,  Clarence  P. :  "The  Land  System  of  Md."  J.  Hopkins  Univ.  Stud. 
31:1;  Bait.,  1913 ;  p.  39. 


i8          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

ture,  and  may  still  be  denominated  a  pre-eminently  tobacco 
region. 

The  northern  part  of  the  Eastern  Shore,  easily  reached  from 
across  the  Bay,  proved  attractive  to  the  tobacco  planters  of 
Southern  Maryland  on  account  of  its  heavy  soil,  which  gave  them 
additional  scope  for  their  favorite  industry.  The  banks  of  the 
northern  estuaries  were  high,  moreover,  and  afforded  almost  as 
good  wharfage  for  every  water-side  plantation  as  was  found 
along  the  "rivers"  of  the  oldest  tobacco  estates  on  the  Western 
Shore.  The  region  indented  by  the  Bohemia,  Sassafras  and  Ches- 
ter Rivers,  owned  and  inhabited  largely  by  the  landholders  of 
Southern  Maryland  or  their  near  relatives,  became  a  copy  of  that 
section. 

The  heavy  "Oronoco"  tobacco  produced  in  Maryland,  a 
strong  variety  for  pipe-smoking,  lost  favor  in  England,  how- 
ever, and  had  to  be  consumed  mostly  in  France,  where  the  trade 
was  vested  by  royal  monopoly  in  the  French  West  India  Com- 
pany, which,  unrestrained  by  competition,  gave  the  Maryland 
planter  a  low  price. 

By  1720  dissatisfaction  with  the  returns  from  tobacco- 
raising  was  at  a  high  pitch.  While,  however,  the  planters  of  the 
Western  Shore  clung  to  their  beloved  weed  as  a  sole  money  crop, 
those  of  the  Eastern  Shore  tobacco  district  now  developed  in 
their  richer  and  generally  heavier  soil  the  raising  of  much  wheat, 
a  typical  heavy-land  crop,  as  a  second  string  to  their  bow.  There 
was  a  nearby  market  for  wheat  in  Philadelphia,  where  it  was 
demanded  by  merchants  in  the  West  India  trade,  and  whither 
it  could  be  carried  easily  by  a  short  combination  land-and-water 
route. 

When  King  George's  War  (1744-1748)  broke  out,  the 
French  tobacco  market  was  closed,  and  only  a  small  demand 
came  to  Maryland  from  England.  Most  of  the  Eastern  Shore 
planters  then  fell  back  entirely  on  their  profitable  wheat  crop, 
while  on  his  sandier  soil  the  Southern  Maryland  agriculturist 
struggled  on  with  tobacco.  By  1760  the  Eastern  Shore  raised 
very  little  tobacco,  and  the  Revolution  finished  the  extinction  of 
the  crop  by  enhancing  greatly  the  value  of  food-stuffs,  particu- 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          19 

larly  wheat.13  Since  that  day  the  four  northernmost  counties 
of  the  Eastern  Shore,  Cecil,  Kent,  Queen  Anne  and  Talbot,  have 
been  known  as  the  great  wheat  region  of  Tidewater  Maryland. 
Today,  though  much  of  the  Eastern  Shore  wheat  goes  to  Balti- 
more instead  of  Philadelphia,  the  region  where  it  is  raised  has  a 
Northern  aspect,  with  substantial  farm  buildings  and  effectively 
fenced  fields,  in  strong  contrast  to  the  Southern  aspect  of  the 
tobacco  region. 

The  southern  part  of  the  Eastern  Shore,  up  to  recent  times, 
somewhat  resembled  in  its  life  that  of  the  "poor  whites"  of  the 
South.  The  land,  being  for  the  most  part  either  very  sandy  or 
swampy,  lent  itself  neither  to  profitable  raising  of  wheat  nor  to 
tobacco.  Therefore,  there  was  little  cultivation  on  a  large  scale, 
and  little  slave  labor  in  the  fields.  In  the  absence  of  modern 
transport  and  modern  large  markets  there  was  not  much  that 
could  be  sent  out  of  the  region  to  bring  in  money,  but  a  living 
was  easy  to  make  in  that  mild  climate,  for  the  Bay  was  at  hand, 
with  an  abundance  of  fish  and  fowl.  A  net,  a  gun  and  a  sailboat 
formed  the  chief  dependence  of  most  families. 

Thus  grew  up  a  race  of  hardy  and  independent  watermen, 
inured  to  temporary  labor,  but  poor  and  non-progressive.  It  was 
a  most  democratic  society,  however,  and  the  honesty  and  sturdi- 
ness  of  its  people  were  proverbial.  The  men  of  this  region 
developed  special  craft,  such  as  the  sailing  canoe,  built  of  hol- 
lowed logs,  and  the  "canoe's  big  brother,"  the  sharp-ended  decked 
buckeye  or  bugeye,  an  exceptionally  staunch  and  fleet  freight 
vessel,  which  is  still  seen  on  the  Chesapeake.  The  sailors  of 
such  craft  furnished  the  crews  of  many  of  the  privateers  during 
the  War  of  1812  and  of  the  Baltimore  clippers  of  a  later  date. 
With  the  great  demand  of  present-day  industrial  populations  for 
food,  and  the  wonderful  improvement  of  transportation,  this 
region  has  come  into  its  own.  Its  fishing  industries  have  greatly 
increased,  but  in  addition  the  once  apparently  barren  sands  are 
supporting  an  immense  truck  industry,  which  is  the  principal 


"The  last  tobacco  warehouse  on  the  Eastern  Shore  was  abolished  by 
court  order  in  1796,  having  for  some  time  been  disused.  See  Ingraham,  Pren- 
tiss :  "The  Land  of  Legendary  Lore,"  Easton,  Md.,  1898;  p.  247. 


2o          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

source  of  the  region's  present  prosperity.  When  reclamation 
brings  into  use  the  fertile  but  undrained  land  now  lying  in  marsh 
and  swamp,  the  progress  of  this  portion  of  Maryland  will  be  still 
more  remarkable. 

Thus  we  note  that  in  Tidewater  Maryland  the  great  natural 
divisions  have  differentiated  their  industrial  past  and  maintain 
those  industrial  differences  to  the  present.  The  ancient  tobacco 
district,  the  later  wheat  district,  the  modern  truck  district,  all 
bear  witness  to  the  power  of  geographic  controls. 


MAP    2.       COMMUNITIES    OF    TIDEWATER    MARYLAND. 


IV.  POPULATION.14 

On  account  of  its  early  settlement  and  the  easy  access  by 
water  to  its  various  portions,  Tidewater  Maryland  assumed,  be- 
fore Colonial  history  was  far  advanced,  a  well-civilized  aspect, 
with  a  white  population  absolutely  English  in  blood  and  custom. 

When  the  great  railroad  lines  of  the  East  were  laid  out, 
however,  the  main  route  from  the  North  to  the  South  avoided  the 
crossing  of  the  Bay  which  was  usual  in  former  days  and  took  the 
route  along  or  near  the  Fall  Line.  This  route  gave  a  short  line 
with  easy  grade,  crossing  streams  at  the  heads  of  their  estuaries, 
and  took  in  Baltimore  and  Washington  as  principal  points,  but 
left  the  Plain  to  one  side  of  the  course  of  travel.  The  rush  of  our 
own  people  to  the  West  and  the  flood  of  foreign  immigration 
into  the  Unitt  d  States  left  the  Plain  undisturbed  in  the  compara- 
tive isolation  which  thus  overtook  it,  so  that  its  increase  has  been 
largely  internal  and  its  people  have  remained  remarkably  true 
to  the  type  of  the  original  settlers.  Ninety-two  per  cent,  of  the 
200,000  whites  in  1910  were  native-born  of  native  parents,  in 
most  cases  of  old  English  stock.  With  these  is  associated  a 
negro  population  half  as  large  as  the  white,  and  both  white  and 
negro  are  mainly  agricultural  in  their  pursuits. 

With  over  50  per  cent,  of  the  land  of  Maryland,  the  Coast 
Plain  now  contains  about  40  per  cent,  of  the  State's  population 
outside  of  Baltimore  and  its  suburbs — a  density  of  64  to  the 
square  mile.  It  is  only  half  as  thickly  inhabited  as  the  Maryland 
Piedmont,  yet  its  population  cannot  be  called  sparse,  there  being 
only  one  county  (Charles,  in  Southern  Maryland)  which  is  as 
low  as  35  to  the  square  mile,  and  even  that  density  greatly  sur- 
passes many  of  the  counties  in  Virginia's  Coast  Plain,  and  even 
in  her  Piedmont. 

Regional  Growth  and  Decay. 

The  Eastern  Shore  is  more  thickly  settled  than  the  Western 
Shore,  and  its  people  are  well  distributed.  In  the  past  the 
densest  population  of  the  whole  Plain  has  been  found  in  the 


"The  statistics  of  population  in  this  chapter  are  from  the  Thirteenth  U. 
S.  Census  (1910),  Vol.  2. 

(21) 


22.          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

wheat  region,  but  that  apparently  well-to-do  section,  with  its 
well-drained  ground,  good  soil,  large  farms,  neat  buildings,  and 
hedge-bordered,  well-kept  roads,  has,  during  the  past  quarter 
century,  since  1890,  in  spite  of  good  crops,  lost  population  both 
relatively  to  the  rest  of  the  Eastern  Shore  and  absolutely. 

In  1890  the  wheat  region,  with  33  per  cent,  of  the  area  of 
the  Eastern  Shore,  contained  37^2  per  cent,  of  its  population,  in 
1900  only  35^2  per  cent.,  in  1910  only  32  per  cent.  Its  popula- 
tion from  1890  to  1900  increased  2  per  cent.,  but  in  the  next 
decade  lost  7  per  cent.,  so  that  there  were  3000  less  people  in  the 
region  in  1910  than  there  had  been  twenty  years  before.  Even 
its  towns  have  shared  to  some  extent  in  the  decrease.  Of  its  six 
communities  with  over  1000  citizens  in  1900,  three  had  decreased 
by  1910  with  per  cents,  ranging  from  4  to  13.  It  appears  as 
though  the  old  method  of  general  farming,  with  its  accompany- 
ing tenant-system,  was  not  able  to  hold  its  population  against  the 
lure  of  the  developing  truck  interest  to  the  south  and  the  attrac- 
tion of  the  manufacturing  districts  toward  the  north.  The  de- 
crease in  population  was  accompanied  by  an  actual  decrease  in 
land  cultivated,  though  the  wheat  area  was  not  reduced,  the 
productiveness  of  the  land  was  not  noticeably  impaired,  and  prices 
did  not  fall. 

The  sandy  southern  counties  have  found  a  blessing  in  raising 
truck  for  direct  supply  of  city  market  and  for  canning  factories. 
While  the  wheat  region  was  increasing  2  per  cent. -in  population 
from  1890  to  1900,  the  truck  region  was  increasing  n  per  cent., 
and  in  the  succeeding  decade  it  increased  8  per  cent. 

None  of  its  six  largest  towns  (those  over  1000  each  in  1900) 
failed  to  increase  its  population  in  the  last  census  decade,  the 
percentage  of  increase  ranging  from  a  negligible  one  in  the  case 
of  Easton  to  56  for  Salisbury.  Both  Salisbury  and  Cambridge, 
the  chief  cities,  are  now  over  6000,  and  Crisfield,  known  for  its 
fishing  industries,  is  over  3000.  The  general  atmosphere  of  the 
region  is  that  of  progress,  due  to  the  profitable  nature  of  the 
truck  industry,  the  large  amount  of  labor  necessary,  the  activity 
of  transportation,  and  the  outside  capital  brought  in. 

The  growth  of  the  town  at  the  expense  of  the  farm  has  been 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          23 

marked  on  the  Eastern  Shore,  as  well  as  elsewhere  in  the  nation, 
as  the  following  table  will  show. 

Increase  of  Population. 

Wheat  Region,                          1890-1900  1900-1910 

All  Territory,                                    2%  *7% 

Incorporated  Territory,                   3%  6% 

Truck  Region,                           1890-1900  1900-1910 

All  Territory,                                  11%  8% 

Incorporated  Territory,                 49%  27% 

*  Decrease. 

Southern  Maryland,  a  region  noted  for  its  lack  of  good 
transportation,  has  been  at  a  standstill  for  some  time,  except  in 
the  immediate  neighborhood  of  Washington  and  along  the  line 
of  the  railroad  from  Washington  to  Baltimore.  From  1880  to 
1890  the  region  increased  but  one-fifth  of  i  per  cent.;  from  1890 
to  1900,  under  the  influence  of  the  expansion  of  cities  through- 
out the  United  States,  with  a  general  rise  in  price  of  farm  com- 
modities, it  gained  13  per  cent,  in  population.  This  boom,  how- 
ever, brought  no  better  transportation  through  most  of  the  region, 
and  the  last  census  decade,  therefore,  showed  slight  decreases 
in  two  of  the  five  counties  composing  the  section,  a  marked  de- 
crease in  a  third,  a  practically  stationary  condition  in  a  fourth, 
and  in  the  fifth  county  (Prince  Georges)  bordering  on  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia,  a  decided  decrease  in  the  half  of  the  county 
farther  from  Washington  to  partially  offset  the  large  increase  in 
the  other  half. 

The  people  of  Southern  Maryland  are  even  more  rural  than 
those  of  the  Eastern  Shore ;  85  per  cent,  of  them  live  upon  farms, 
as  against  75  per  cent,  on  the  other  side  of  the  bay.  Except  quaint 
Annapolis,  and  a  few  suburban  communities  along  the  Baltimore- 
Washington  Railway,  there  are  no  towns  of  even  600  population. 
Annapolis,  with  a  population  of  less  than  9000,  has  practically 
ceased  to  grow,  and  the  large  truck  industry  in  its  neighborhood 
is  not  expanding.  Elsewhere  in  Southern  Maryland  agriculture  is 
depressed  and  land  is  being  abandoned  at  a  rapid  rate.  Unless 
unforeseen  conditions  arise  to  change  the  situation,  it  is  probable 
that  the  present  decline  in  population  will  continue. 


24          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

Negro  Population. 

The  county  of  Southern  Maryland  (Charles),  which  showed 
the  greatest  decrease  of  population,  is  the  only  one  in  the  State 
in  which  the  negroes  outnumbered  the  whites  in  1910.  It  is  sig- 
nificant to  note  also  that  the  only  county  in  the  same  region  which 
increased  decidedly  in  population  (Prince  George)  was  the  one 
which  had  the  lowest  percentage  of  negroes  in  Southern  Mary- 
land. The  negro  is  the  usual  farm  laborer  throughout  the  entire 
Coast  Plain,  71  per  cent,  of  the  negroes  of  the  State  outside  of 
Baltimore  residing  there,  but  the  labor  is  usually  rather  inefficient. 
Southern  Maryland  is  the  pre-eminent  region  of  the  State  in  the 
employment  of  negro  labor,  so  keeping  up  the  old  traditions. 
Nearly  40  per  cent,  of  the  district's  population  is  still  negro, 
though  with  the  diminution  of  population  negroes  have  been 
diminishing  also.  They  are  now  no  more  numerous  than  they 
were  in  1890,  and  are  therefore  proportionally  less  numerous  in 
each  county. 

On  account  of  dissatisfaction  with  negro  labor,  many  truck 
farmers  on  the  Eastern  Shore  have  been  endeavoring  to  replace 
negro  labor  by  white,  and  have  procured  Bohemians  and  Poles 
from  Baltimore,  as  New  Jersey  farmers  have  hired  Italians  from 
Philadelphia.  The  labor  thus  obtained  is  efficient,  can  be  gotten 
in  proper  quantity  when  needed,  and  discharged  at  the  end  of  its 
usefulness.  Perhaps  the  change  from  negro  to  white  laborers 
may  be  a  measure  of  the  development  of  this  portion  of  the 
country. 

Every  county  in  the  Eastern  Shore  has  less  negroes  in  pro- 
portion to  the  whites  than  it  had  in  1900.  Negroes  have  dimin- 
ished absolutely  in  the  entire  wheat  region,  though  on  account  of 
the  call  for  labor  they  have  increased  their  numbers  in  the  truck 
region.  The  two  counties  in  the  truck  region  (Caroline  and 
Wicomico)  which  have  a  low  percentage  of  negroes,  however, 
are  the  ones  which  most  increased  in  population  and  prosperity 
during  the  decade  1900-1910. 

Even  in  the  parts  of  the  Plain  where  by  force  of  climate, 
products  and  tradition,  the  negro  has  been  most  utilized  as  a 
laborer,  there  seems  to  be  no  probabilities  that  he  will  increase 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          25 

so  as  to  deter  Northern  settlement  or  to  present  additional  social 
problems.  There  are  no  more  negroes  now  than  there  were  in 
1890,  notwithstanding  the  easy  conditions  of  life  which  the  Plain 
affords.  In  1890  there  were  105,000,  or  40  per  cent,  of  the  whole 
Plain's  population;  in  1910  there  were  still  105,000,  but  they 
formed  only  35  per  cent,  of  the  people.  While  the  whites  had 
increased  21  per  cent.,  the  negroes  had  just  held  their  own.  There 
is  a  steady  drift  of  colored  young  people  toward  the  nearest 
large  cities,  where  life  is  more  varied  than  in  rural  communities. 
Evidently,  there  will  exist  in  Maryland  no  "black  belt,"  such  as 
some  other  States  possess,  where  the  negroes  form  the  most 
considerable  element. 

Foreign  Born. 

As  we  have  previously  noted,  Tidewater  Maryland,  with  its 
few  and  small  towns  and  its  isolation  from  the  routes  of  travel 
from  the  seaboard  toward  the  West,  has  escaped  the  rush  of 
foreign  immigration.  Only  3.6  per  cent,  of  the  whites  in  1900, 
and  3.4  per  cent,  in  1910,  were  foreign-born.  The  greatest  pro- 
portion of  foreigners  today  is  found  in  Southern  Maryland,  in 
the  truck  district,  which  lies  adjacent  to  Baltimore,  a  port  of  im- 
migration; the  least  proportion  is  found  in  the  truck  region  of 
the  Eastern  Shore,  which  lies  farthest  from  Baltimore  of  the 
Plain's  three  great  divisions. 

Under  usual  conditions,  the  economic  history  of  our  country 
since  immigration  became  immense,  has  shown  that  the  increase 
of  the  foreigner  in  any  given  district  is  the  sign  of  increasing  in- 
dustrial activity,  his  decrease  the  sign  of  the  reverse  condition. 
The  foreigners  of  Southern  Maryland  are  confined  mostly  to  the 
truck  district  near  Baltimore;  they  came  there  from  Baltimore 
in  considerable  numbers  during  the  expansion  of  the  district  after 
1890.  As  that  district  is  no  longer  expanding,  the  foreign-born 
are  also  absolutely  at  a  standstill  in  numbers,  and  their  propor- 
tion to  the  total  population  is  diminishing.  Their  proportion  is 
diminishing  also,  though  not  to  the  same  extent,  in  the  wheat 
region  of  the  Eastern  Shore,  with  its  stationary  industry  and 
lessening  population.  Only  in  the  truck  region  of  the  Eastern 


26          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

Shore  is  there  an  increase,  both  absolutely  and  relatively  to 
population,  in  the  number  of  foreigners,  and  that  increase  is 
slight,  despite  the  agricultural  boom  since  1900.  The  foreigners, 
though  they  come  from  Baltimore  by  hundreds  to  supply  the 
seasonal  demand  for  workers  in  field  and  cannery,  do  not  ap- 
parently care  to  remain  so  far  from  the  city,  and  perhaps  also 
are  not  welcome. 

Per  Cent,  of  Foreign-Born  Whites  in  Total  White  Population. 

Southern  Wheat  Region  Truck  Region 

Maryland.  Eastern  Shore.  Eastern  Shore. 
1900               7.6                         1.9  1.2 

1910  6.6  1.7  1.3 

General  Condition. 

We  see,  therefore,  that  Tidewater  Maryland  on  account  of 
its  situation  and  its  agricultural  development,  is  a  region  of  in- 
creasing homogeneity  of  population.  Both  the  negro  and  the 
foreigner  are  decreasing  in  their  proportion  of  the  population 
and  are  even  at  a  practical  standstill  in  numbers,  though  the  total 
population  of  the  Plain  is  increasing.  These  are  the  elements  with 
which  it  is  usually  most  difficult  to  deal  in  effecting  social  prog- 
ress, and  their  gradual  lessening  as  factors  affords  the  Plain  an 
easier  solution  of  whatever  problems  it  may  have  to  face. 


MAP    3.       COUNTIES    OF    TIDEWATER   MARYLAND. 


V.  PRESENT-DAY  RESOURCES  AND  INDUSTRIES. 

I.    AGRICULTURE.15 

The  broad  division  of  Tidewater  Maryland  into  the  tobacco 
region,  the  wheat  region  and  the  truck  region  has  already  been 
noted.  Although  these  are  not  sharply  separated  agriculturally, 
except  as  to  tobacco,  they  present  such  differences  that  they  can 
be  separately  discussed. 

a.  Southern  Maryland. 

Southern  Maryland  is  the  oldest  agricultural  district  of  the 
State,  and  its  farming  displays  a  marked  conservative  tendency. 
The  keystone  of  its  agriculture  has  always  been  tobacco. 

The  early  settlers  found  in  Southern  Maryland  the  sandy 
loams,  enriched  by  centuries  of  forest  decay,  which  were  exceed- 
ingly favorable  to  tobacco's  growth.  The  Bay  and  its  tributaries 
brought  transportation  facilities  to  their  very  doors,  and  in  to- 
bacco centered  their  life.  Values  were  expressed  in  it;  prosperity 
or  failure  depended  upon  its  price  abroad.  It  determined  the 
labor  of  the  colony.  As  tobacco  needs  much  hand  labor,  slavery, 
being  thought  to  ensure  a  cheap  labor  supply,  fastened  itself  on 
the  region.  Tobacco,  being  a  "gross  feeder,"  exhausted  the  soil 
and  caused  the  tobacco  planters  to  hold  large  tracts  of  land  instead 
of  small  farms.  In  short,  all  the  economic  phenomena  which 
have  been  often  portrayed  in  tobacco-raising  Virginia,  occurred 
also  in  tobacco-raising  Maryland. 

As  Baltimore  attained  importance,  the  tobacco  no  longer 
went  directly  abroad  from  the  planter's  wharf,  but  was  sent  to  a 
middleman  in  the  city.  Still,  however,  water  transport  was  a 
great  feature.  The  preservation  of  the  quality  of  the  tobacco 
depended  much  upon  its  being  well  packed  in  great  hogsheads. 
These  unwieldy  objects,  weighing  about  a  thousand  pounds  each, 
could  not  to  any  advantage  be  transported  overland,  over  sandy, 


15  The  agriculture  of  the  various  counties  of  Tidewater  Maryland  is  dis- 
cussed in  the  U.  S.  Soil  Surveys  and  Md.  Geol.  Sur.  County  Reports,  sup.  cit. 

(27) 


28          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

muddy,  or  rough  roads,  but  could  be  easily  hauled,  by  one  strong 
ox,  down  from  the  upland  terrace  where  the  weed  was  produced 
to  the  wharf  whence  sailing-vessel,  or,  later,  steamboat,  could  take 
it  to  Baltimore.  In  Southern  Maryland  the  wharf  was  never 
more  than  a  few  miles  distant  from  the  tobacco  field,  and  the 
haul  of  the  loaded  hogshead  was  always  down-hill. 

When  the  railroad  era  came,  Southern  Maryland  was  neg- 
lected in  facilities  for  rapid  transport  by  land,  but  this  deficiency 
did  not  directly  affect  tobacco  transport.  Tobacco  did  not  need 
such  rapid  means  of  conveyance,  for  it  did  not  deteriorate  in 
transit,16  and  the  steamboat  could  carry  it  more  cheaply  than 
could  the  train.  The  extension  of  tobacco-growing  into  new 
localities,  however,  and  the  competition  made  possible  by  the  rail- 
road did  seriously  affect  Maryland  prosperity. 

Tidewater  Maryland  had  no  superiority,  for  tobacco- 
growing,  over  many  another  region.  It  possessed  sandy  loam,  a 
favorable  soil,  but  so  did  much  of  the  whole  Atlantic  Coast  Plain. 
It  had  a  favorable  climate,  which  admitted  of  a  long  growing 
season,  but  so  had  other  States,  for  instance,  North  Carolina, 
which  is  now  the  second  tobacco  State  of  the  Union.  By  virtue 
of  her  early  start,  however,  and  by  the  export  which  the  presence 
of  the  Bay  favored  exceedingly,  the  tobacco  region  of  Maryland 
had  developed,  long  before  the  time  when  the  railroads  opened 
the  Union  to  strong  competition,  a  special  trade  with  France 
and  Holland  in  a  special  type  of  tobacco  different  from  that  of 
Virginia, — a  coarse  leaf  of  light  color,  known  as  the  Maryland 
pipe  tobacco.  This  trade  still  continues  and  is  the  sole  support 
of  tobacco-raising  in  Southern  Maryland  at  present.  Only  one 
other  section  of  the  country,  a  small  portion  of  Ohio,  competes 
with  Tidewater  Maryland  in  this  kind  of  tobacco. 

Though  tobacco  has  been  raised  on  the  Eastern  Shore,  it 
has  faded  out  there  entirely.  A  trifle  is  produced  in  the  Pied- 
mont, but  Southern  Maryland  still  grows  almost  all  of  the  State's 
crop.  In  1899  this  district  contained  97.7  per  cent,  of  the  State's 


"Blodgett,   F.  H.:   "The  Agricultural  Features   of   Maryland,"   in   Md. 
Weather  Bureau,  Vol.  3,  sup.  cit,  p.  338. 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          29 

tobacco  acreage;  in  1909,  96.5  per  cent,  or  about  40,000  acres  in 
good  years.  Over  most  of  Southern  Maryland  tobacco  is  still  the 
main  money-crop.  The  usual  farm  rotation  is  corn,  wheat  and 
tobacco.  In  localities  where  grass  will  grow,  the  corn  is  usually 
planted  in  sod  land,  but  over  much  of  the  district,  on  account  of 
the  sandy  soil,  sod  will  not  form  well,  and  grass  does  not  enter 
into  the  rotation,  corn  stover  being  used  for  forage.  Clover, 
which  might  be  used  for  pasture  or  for  hay,  is  little  raised. 

Although  tobacco  demands  an  excessive  amount  of  hand 
labor  per  acre  as  compared  with  the  cereals,  nearly  as  large  an 
acreage  of  tobacco  as  of  wheat  is  planted.  Wheat,  indeed,  has 
ceased  to  be  an  important  crop  in  most  districts.  The  heavy 
soils  which  would  produce  wheat  well  are  unfit  for  the  kind  of 
tobacco  desired  and  therefore  are  kept  for  pasture.  The  light 
loams  used  for  tobacco  are  not  sufficiently  retentive  of  moisture 
to  make  a  good  wheat  crop  as  far  as  grain  is  concerned.  The 
yields  of  wheat  therefore  are  low,  about  ten  bushels  to  the  acre, 
and  in  many  localities  wheat  is  produced  chiefly  for  its  straw. 

The  tobacco  is  still  transported  from  Southern  Maryland 
entirely  by  water,  and  Baltimore  is  still  the  exclusive  market. 
Oxen  usually  are  employed  instead  of  horses  to  cart  the  great 
hogsheads  to  the  steamboat  landings.  The  ox  is  a  more  eco- 
nomical animal  than  the  horse,  as  he  is  fed  almost  exclusively  on 
forage  crops,  not  grain,  but  this  slow  mode  of  transportation, 
abandoned  in  most  other  portions  of  the  country,  is  typical  of  the 
rate  of  progress  of  the  tobacco  region. 

The  condition  of  the  tobacco  area  is  in  general  far  from 
prosperous  at  present.  The  region  was  once  a  land  of  large 
plantations  tilled  by  slave  labor,  in  these  respects  resembling  the 
cotton  regions  of  the  South.  The  Civil  War  produced  at  once  a 
scarcity  of  labor  and  an  enhancement  of  its  price.  Because  of  this 
difficulty,  most  of  tne  plantations  were  divided  into  tenant  hold- 
ings, and  much  land  went  entirely  out  of  use.  Corn  and  wheat 
suffered  more  and  more  competition  from  the  great  grain-fields 
of  the  West  and  tobacco  became  more  and  more  expensive  to 
raise. 

The  region  has  never  recovered  from  the  shock.     Tenant 


30          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

farming  is  still  the  rule,  and  landlord  and  tenant  do  not  usually 
co-operate  to  fertilize  the  ground  as  heavily  as  good  tobacco, 
with  its  insatiate  appetite  for  lime  and  potash,  requires.  So  much 
land  has  been  impoverished  by  careless  farming  and  the  tilling  of 
steep  slopes  that  the  cultivated  area  is  diminishing.  Population 
in  general  is  decreasing.  An  air  of  discouragement  pervades  the 
district.  Like  the  cotton-planter  farther  South,  moreover,  the 
Maryland  tobacco-planter  is  usually  in  debt,  his  creditor  being  the 
middleman  or  "factor"  in  Baltimore,  who  is  money-lender  as  well 
as  commission-man,  and  finances  the  farmer  by  advances  on  the 
crop.  It  it,  therefore,  difficult  for  the  planters  to  abandon 
tobacco-raising  and  rid  themselves  of  their  dependence  on  the 
"factor";  the  vicious  circle  is  hard  to  break. 

We  have  therefore  a  crop  which  since  the  Civil  War  has 
occupied  only  2  to  4  per  cent,  of  the  region  and  yet  dominates 
the  thought  and  practice  of  the  greater  part  of  the  tillers  of  the 
soil, — an  unfortunate  domination  at  present.17  Yet  there  are  signs 
of  a  more  diversified  and  more  successful  agriculture  in  the 
future. 

The  conditions  of  soil  and  climate  resemble  to  a  considerable 
degree  those  in  the  truck  region  of  the  Eastern  Shore.  The  area 
immediately  south  of  Baltimore,  extending  to  Annapolis,  is  in- 
deed the  most  important  single  truck  region  in  the  whole  State. 
No  other  similar  extent  of  land  in  Maryland  equals  it  in  variety 
as  well  as  in  amount  of  products.  In  its  strawberries,  which  form 
the  chief  supply  of  the  Pittsburgh  market,  its  sweet  potatoes,  its 
peas,  its  canteloupes  and  its  watermelons,  it  is  pre-eminent.  The 
Bay  and  tributaries  give  it  great  facilities  for  transport  by  water 
as  well  as  by  land.  Even  though  many  canneries,  however,  have 
been  established  in  this  truck  region,  the  total  acreage  of  truck 
and  berries  is  not  extending.  It  is  probable  that  in  many  cases 
the  limit  of  profitable  wagon-haul  has  not  been  reached,  but  com- 
petition on  the  part  of  the  Eastern  Shore,  and  limitation  of  the 
supply  of  stable-manure  from  Baltimore,  may  be  responsible  for 
the  stationary  condition. 

"The    unprecedented   conditions    of   the    Great   War   have   now    (1918) 
caused  a  temporary  prosperity  in  the  tobacco  region. 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          31 

The  trucking  area  which  has  developed  in  Southern  Mary- 
land tributary  to  Washington,  on  the  other  hand,  has  increased 
considerably.  The  competition  of  the  Eastern  Shore  is  not  felt 
in  the  Washington  markets,  and  the  city  increased  its  population, 
and  therefore  its  value  as  a  market,  by  over  50,000  persons  during 
1900-1910.  This  truck  area  is  showing  a  marked  tendency  to 
avoid  interfering  with  the  area  near  Baltimore  in  regard  to  those 
crops  which  are  marketed  outside  their  respective  localities.  For 
instance,  it  is  specializing  in  early  white  potatoes,  while  tending  to 
leave  to  the  other  area  the  cultivation  of  sweet  potatoes  as  a 
truck  crop.  This  is  a  wise  procedure. 

Canneries,  with  their  stimulating  effect  upon  production  of 
vegetables  and  fruit,  have  not  yet  developed  to  any  considerable 
extent  in  the  southern  part  of  the  Western  Shore.  Through 
much  of  this  southern  district  there  is  little  local  market  for  truck, 
as  most  families  are  agricultural  and  raise  their  own  vegetables. 
Transportation  by  land  to  larger  markets  is  poor,  and  that  by 
water  is  slow  also.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  some  day  can- 
neries will  be  thick  upon  the  Western  Shore,  and  will  probably 
be  the  financial  salvation  of  the  region.  Tomatoes,  which  fit 
well  into  a  tobacco  rotation,  could  be  raised  in  great  quantities 
to  furnish  an  additional  money  crop. 

Dairying,  even  in  the  least  developed  part  of  Southern 
Maryland,  is  increasing,  though  slowly,  and  will  tend  to  restore 
the  worn-out  soils.  Clover  is  being  used  for  the  same  purpose, 
although  alfalfa  is  not  yet  established  to  any  extent.  In  the 
northern  part  of  the  region  potatoes  are  to  some  extent  replacing 
tobacco,  for  the  two  crops  need  the  same  kind  of  soil.  Tobacco 
may  still  remain  dominant  in  the  region,  but  its  pre-eminence 
over  other  crops  is  certain  in  the  near  future  to  be  greatly  im- 
paired. Southern  Maryland  is  coming  to  realize  that  one-crop 
reliance  has  been  her  bane. 

b.     The  Eastern  Shore  Wheat  Region. 
The  distinctively  wheat  region  of  the  northern  part  of  the 
Eastern  Shore  (part  of  Cecil  County  and  all  of  Kent,  Queen 
Anne  and  Talbot)  raises  wheat  as  a  part  of  general  farming,  the 


32          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

typical  agriculture  of  the  section.  In  its  farming  the  region 
resembles  the  Maryland  Piedmont.  The  typical  Piedmont  rota- 
tion is  used — corn,  wheat,  grass,  wheat  and  grass  for  a  five-field 
system. 

Wheat,  as  it  has  been  for  a  century  and  a  half,  is  still  the 
chief  money  crop.  The  fairly  heavy  land  (Sassafras  loam) 
which  abounds  on  the  upland  gives  high  yields  under  proper 
treatment;  in  spite  of  Western  competition,  therefore,  wheat  has 
been  profitable,  and  the  area  has  increased  up  to  recent  years. 
Much  more  land  is  sown  every  year  to  wheat  than  to  corn.  In 
1909  these  counties,  with  only  10  per  cent,  of  the  State's  area, 
contained  24  per  cent,  of  Maryland's  wheat  acreage,  but  only  13 
per  cent,  of  its  corn  land. 

The  short  and  cheap  water  transport  to  Baltimore  which 
the  Bay  affords  has  controlled  the  movement  of  the  wheat  crop, 
so  that  this  district  resembles  the  tobacco  district  in  having  its 
great  money  crop  moved  practically  entirely  by  water  and  to 
the  same  primary  market  as  the  tobacco.  The  wharf  is  more 
convenient  to  the  great  majority  of  the  wheat  farms  than  is  the 
railroad  station,  and  sailing  vessels  compete  with  the  steamboat 
service  for  carrying  the  wheat,  thus  keeping  down  the  freight 
rate.  The  wheat  district  has  materially  aided  in  making  Balti- 
more the  great  grain  and  flour  market  which  it  now  is. 

Dependence  on  wheat  as  the  sole  money  crop  has  had  occa- 
sional disastrous  results  in  this  district  when  the  favorite  crop 
chanced  to  fail,  and  wise  farmers  are  now  introducing  canning 
crops  of  vegetables,  particularly  tomatoes.  Tomatoes  fit  well 
into  the  usual  rotation,  and  have  been  rapidly  growing  in  favor, 
being  esteemed  to  leave  the  soil  in  excellent  condition  for  wheat. 
Since  the  introduction  of  canning  crops  it  is  not  likely  that  wheat 
will  ever  again  be  so  dominant  in  the  district  as  it  has  been. 
While  in  1899  almost  60  per  cent,  of  the  cultivated  land  in  the 
northern  Eastern  Shore  was  in  wheat,  ten  years  later  wheat  cov- 
ered only  32  per  cent. 

Though  grass  flourishes  on  the  heavier  soils  of  the  wheat 
district,  there  are  few,  if  any,  exclusively  dairy  farms.  Labor 
is  not  very  skilled  along  this  line,  and  the  Southern  blood  in  the 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          33 

farmers  does  not  relish  the  close  confinement  to  duty  which  a 
large  dairy  farm  often  entails.  Wheat  and  tomatoes  have  been 
far  more  popular  than  milch  cows,  though  on  many  farms  there 
has  been  dairying  in  a  small  way  as  a  side  line. 

Fruit-raising  has  been  much  more  attractive  than  dairying. 
In  this  section,  extending  into  Delaware,  once  was  located  the 
first  great  centralized  peach  district  of  the  United  States,  which 
reached  its  height  of  production  about  1875.  The  peach  seems 
to  bear  most  abundantly  in  a  sandy,  well-drained  soil,  and  the 
immense  contiguous  orchards  were  found  by  Bayard  Taylor 
worthy  of  his  pen.  The  Bay  was  an  important  controlling  fac- 
tor. Its  water  retained  the  chill  of  winter  long  enough  to  hold 
back  the  too  early  opening  of  the  buds  in  spring,  and  as  that 
season  advanced,  the  Bay  protected  the  trees  against  late  frosts 
by  raising  the  night  temperatures. 

The  massed  trees,  however,  received  little  care,  and  at  last 
the  "yellows"  and  kindred  diseases  swept  through  them  with 
devastation  effect.  Peach-raising  was  almost  abandoned  for  a 
time.  Recent  experiments  on  a  large  commercial  scale  have 
proved,  however,  that  with  proper  cultivation  and  spraying, 
peaches  can  still  be  raised  well  and  profitably  on  the  Eastern 
Shore,  and  several  orchard  companies  have  made  considerable 
plantings  since  1910.  The  entire  Eastern  Shore  at  that  time  held 
almost  half  of  the  peach  trees  of  Maryland,  the  true  peach  area, 
however,  being  confined  to  its  old  site  in  the  wheat  region  and 
its  neighborhood,  where  three  medium-sized  counties  (Caroline, 
Kent  and  Queen  Anne),  with  an  area  of  one-tenth  of  the  land 
of  the  State,  contained  one-third  of  the  State's  peach  trees,  and 
outclassed  even  the  counties  in  which  the  Blue  Ridge  peach  belt 
of  Maryland  lies. 

The  peaches  of  this  region  are  popular  in  northern  markets, 
but  the  danger  of  glutting  the  market  for  fresh  fruit  is  ever 
present.  The  peach  decays  with  such  rapidity  that  in  some  years 
a  large  percentage  of  the  crop  rots  under  the  trees  or  is  thrown 
away  in  the  market  to  which  it  is  sent.  At  present  much  of  the 
product  goes  by  water  to  Baltimore  to  be  canned,  but,  for  the 
best  utilization  of  the  crop,  canning  factories  for  the  fruit  should 


34          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

be  located  at  the  point  of  production.  If  this  is  adequately  car- 
ried out,  there  is  no  apparent  reason  why  peaches  should  not  be 
an  important  and  permanent  resource. 

While  the  peach  was  in  temporary  eclipse,  the  Kieffer  pear 
came  into  prominence  on  its  old  ground.  This  pear  has  been 
called  "the  most  successful  pear  grown."  1S  It  is  a  wonderful 
producer,  and  its  hard  flesh,  while  almost  disqualifying  it  for 
use  in  a  raw  state,  renders  it  ideal  for  canning  purposes.  In  the 
wheat  region,  pear  and  peach  trees  are  almost  equal  in  number, 
though  the  advantage  of  production  is  with  the  pears.  Sixty 
per  cent,  of  the  pear-trees  are  contained  in  one  small  county 
(Kent),  which  also  stands  first  in  peach-trees.  Here  canneries 
are  becoming  abundant,  though  much  of  the  fruit  still  goes  to 
Baltimore.  There  is  every  reason  why  both  pears  and  peaches 
should  be  raised  in  this  excellent  fruit  district  of  the  whole 
northern  Eastern  Shore. 

c.     The  Eastern  Shore  Truck  Region. 

The  southern  region  of  the  Eastern  Shore  was  once  the  poor- 
est and  most  backward  section  of  Tidewater  Maryland — now  it  is 
the  richest  and  most  progressive.  Tobacco  as  king  has  brought 
financial  disaster  to  Southern  Maryland ;  wheat  as  king  has  begun 
to  decline  in  the  northern  Eastern  Shore;  but  the  region  where 
trucking  reigns  is  at  its  heyday. 

Here  are  all  the  features  which  make  the  trucker  happy — 
large  areas  of  light  land,  a  long  growing  season,  a  fair  amount  of 
moisture  and  plenty  of  sunshine,  proximity  to  large  markets  and 
good  transportation  thither.  From  1899  to  19°9  eacn  °f  the 
Eastern  Shore  counties  south  of  the  wheat  region  increased  its 
already  large  vegetable  acreage  (excluding  Irish  and  sweet  pota- 
toes) by  percentages  ranging  from  u  to  82  per  cent.  The  per- 
cent, of  increase  for  the  whole  district  was  50,  as  against  28  for 
the  wheat  region  and  7  for  Southern  Maryland.  Early  vege- 
tables, berries,  canteloupes,  watermelons  and  sweet  potatoes  grow 

18  U.   S.   Bureau  of   Soils,  Field  Operations,   1907;   Soil   Survey,   Easton 
Area,  Md. ;  p.  12. 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          35 

to  perfection  and  keep  the  trucker  employed  throughout  the 
whole  growing  season. 

While  its  sandy  soil  gives  this  region  an  advantage  in  earli- 
ness  of  crops  over  the  trucking  districts  lying  inland  from 
Tidewater  Maryland  in  the  same  latitude,  these  as  a  rule  having 
heavier  soil,  advantage  of  position  toward  the  south  enables 
Eastern  Shore  truck  to  enter  the  Northern  markets  before  that 
of  the  New  Jersey  Coast  Plain,  whose  soil  is  of  similarly  light 
character.  For  the  early  products  of  the  region  the  railroad 
furnishes  adequate  and  fairly  swift  transport  northward,  with 
refrigerator  cars  when  needed,  and  cheap  water  carriage  to 
Baltimore  takes  care  of  about  as  much  freight  as  does  the  rail- 
road.19 

The  Bay  gives  to  the  produce  of  the  late  spring  and  early 
autumn  a  security  which  more  inland  regions  cannot  have,  and 
through  the  summer  tends  to  modify  the  drought  which  might 
otherwise  afflict.  A  heavy  dew  at  night  is  often  as  refreshing 
to  plants  as  is  a  light  rain  through  the  day,  and  the  atmosphere 
of  the  truck  region,  which  is  flanked  on  both  sides  by  water,  is 
decidedly  humid. 

For  the  abundant  products  of  the  later  season  the  Eastern 
Shore  trucker  has  at  hand  the  outlet  afforded  by  hundreds  of 
canneries,  both  large  and  small.  Nowhere  else  in  the  world  do 
canneries  more  abound,  and  they  pack  a  large  variety  of  goods, 
from  spinach  to  sweet  potatoes.  They  aid  materially  to  pre- 
vent gluts  in  the  market,  and  supplement  at  a  fair  price  the 
higher  rate  of  income  which  comes  from  supplying  private  cus- 
tomers. Most  of  them  are  able  to  ship  their  product  by  either 
land  or  water  with  facility. 

The  presence  of  the  canneries  also  enables  holders  of  rather 
heavier  land  to  raise  certain  truck  crops,  as  tomatoes,  and  find 
a  profitable  market  for  them.  The  heavy  soils  produce  a  larger 
crop,  though  a  later  one,  than  do  the  sandy  lands ;  but,  were  it 
not  for  the  canneries,  this  late  and  perishable  crop  would  be 


19  Bonsteel,  Jay  A. :  "Truck  Soils  of  the  Atlantic  Coast  Region,"  in  Year- 
book U.  S.  Dept.  of  Ag.,  IQJ2;  p.  431. 


36          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

subject  to  such  severe  competition  in  overstocked  markets  as  to 
cause  its  discontinuance  as  a  commercial  factor.  The  cannery 
has  thus  caused  Talbot  County,  the  most  southern  county  of  the 
wheat  region,  to  become  important  in  truck-raising  also,  so  that 
from  1899  to  1909,  while  its  large  wheat  acreage  decreased  5  per 
cent.,  its  truck  increased  50  per  cent. 

The  chief  spring  vegetables  of  the  Eastern  Shore  are 
asparagus,  peas  and  early  potatoes.  The  strawberry  is  an  impor- 
tant accompaniment  of  these,  and  is  also  largely  used  by  the  can- 
neries. Not  only  did  it  occupy  about  90  per  cent,  of  the  acreage 
of  small  fruits  in  1909,  but  it  moreover  is  rapidly  driving  out 
other  berries.  The  refrigerator  car  has  made  possible  a  great 
increase  in  strawberry  production,  and  strawberries  compose 
most  of  the  refrigerated  product  that  goes  northward  from  the 
Maryland  Plain.  Tomatoes  and  sweet  corn,  however,  form  the 
bulk  of  the  canning  crop,  tomatoes  being  by  far  the  more  impor- 
tant. The  Eastern  Shore  cans  about  half  the  tomatoes  for  the 
whole  United  States.  The  early  crop  of  potatoes  is  often  fol- 
lowed by  a  second  crop,  which  is  used  only  for  home  and  local 
needs,  for  though  potatoes  yield  excellently  in  the  sandy  loams, 
they  would  glut  the  markets  if  sent  North  late  in  the  season.  The 
sweet  potato,  which  requires  even  lighter  and  sandier  soil  than 
the  Irish  potato,  finds  a  congenial  habitat  in  the  southern  part 
of  the  Shore,  where,  moreover,  the  winters  are  comparatively 
mild. 

Dairying,  which  is  such  an  important  complement  of  gen- 
eral farming,  was  considered  until  recently  as  incapable  of  exist- 
ing on  the  light  soils  of  the  truck  region.  On  many  fields  grass 
could  not  be  grown  on  account  of  insufficient  moisture,  and  the 
fodder  of  animals  was  therefore  derived  from  corn.  The  silo, 
giving  green  food  throughout  the  winter,  was  unknown;  so 
were  also  the  forage  legumes.  Now  the  growth  of  population 
in  the  truck  region,  coupled  with  an  increase  in  agricultural 
knowledge,  has  led  to  an  important  extension  of  dairying  from 
the  wheat  region  toward  the  south.  Instead  of  the  time-honored 
clover  and  timothy  of  the  Piedmont,  pasturage  and  hay  for  the 
cattle  are  supplied  by  various  other  forage  crops  and  by  corn 
silage.  The  sweet-corn  raised  for  canneries  could  have  its  for- 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          37 

age,  which  is  now  often  wasted,  utilized  by  silos  on  the  farm  or 
at  the  canneries.  The  extension  of  dairying  means  much  to 
the  fertility  of  the  Southern  Shore,  and  this  extension,  though 
well  marked,  is  yet  in  its  infancy.  It  will  enable  that  region  to 
support  a  far  greater  population  than  now  it  holds. 

2.     FISHING. 

The  Coast  Plain  possesses  in  its  fisheries  an  actual  and 
potential  source  of  great  wealth.  Minerals,  once  removed,  will 
not  be  replaced,  but  the  crop  of  the  waters,  by  proper  regulation, 
can  be  renewed  continually.  The  forty-mile  stretch  of  Atlantic 
coast,  with  the  great  lagoon  behind  it,  has  possibilities  for  a 
considerable  development  of  both  deep-water  and  shallow-water 
fisheries,  but  is  insignificant  beside  the  1,500,000  acres  of  water 
extent  (2300  square  miles)  owned  by  Maryland  in  Chesapeake 
Bay  and  its  upper  tributaries.  Oysters,  crabs,  and  many  kinds 
of  food-fish  abound  in  these  waters  and  aid  materially  in  sup- 
porting many  persons  who  are  not  even  classed  as  fishermen. 
It  is  the  common  saying  along  the  Bay:  "Give  a  man  a  little 
grease  and  flour  and  he  can  live  free  for  half  the  year." 

First  in  value  of  Maryland's  fishery  products  is  the  oyster. 
In  1916  oystering  employed  about  25,000  fishermen.  Nearly 
800  vessels,  averaging  ten  tons  each,  were  engaged  in  the  fishery, 
beside  over  1300  gasoline  boats  and  a  swarm  of  other  small 
craft.  The  5,250,000  bushels  of  oysters  obtained  brought  to 
the  fishermen  over  two  million  dollars — a  product  and  value 
slightly  inferior  to  that  of  Virginia,  which  has  richer  beds.  The 
Maryland  fishermen  produced  in  the  year  named  about  one-third 
of  all  the  oysters  gathered  in  the  United  States,20  and  the  oyster 
industry  stands  next  in  importance  to  farming  as  a  primary 
industry  of  Maryland. 

Chesapeake  Bay  is  the  greatest  oyster  producing  body  of 
water  in  the  world.21  It  is  brackish  enough  to  allow  oysters  to 


20  Md.  State  Bd.  of  Labor  and  Statistics,  25th  Am.  Kept.  Bait.,  1916; 
p.  40. 

"  Smith,  Hugh  M.  (U.  S.  Fish  Commissioner)  :  National  Geog.  Mag., 
June,  1916;  p.  555- 


38          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

grow  as  far  north  as  Baltimore.  Its  tributaries  bring  down  from 
the  land  much  vegetable  matter,  which  acts  as  a  culture-medium 
for  the  microscopic  forms  of  animal  life  on  which  the  oyster 
feeds.  The  large  and  indented  coast-line  gives  a  variety  of 
currents,  some  rapid  and  constant,  which  make  a  bare  and  hard 
bottom  where  the  young  oysters  may  cling  without  danger  of 
being  smothered  by  sand  or  mud ;  some  slow,  so  that  the  maturing 
oyster  may  make  the  most  of  the  food  in  the  water  and  grow 
large  and  fat.  Thus  are  met  the  diverse  conditions  required  on 
the  one  hand  by  seed  oysters,  and  on  the  other  by  marketable 
oysters.  The  cycle  of  production  is  complete,  and  the  conditions 
for  the  continuance  of  the  industry  are  naturally  provided. 

The  entire  oyster  area  of  the  Maryland  Bay  has  been  sur- 
veyed, and  its  condition  is  fairly  well  known  and  mapped.  Two 
hundred  thousand  acres  at  present,  about  one-seventh  of  the 
upper  Bay,  are  producing  or  have  produced  oysters  in  good  quan- 
tity. Half  again  as  much  can  by  planting  be  converted  into 
valuable  oyster  grounds,  giving  a  total  area  nearly  half  as  large 
as  Rhode  Island.22  The  southern  half  of  the  Atlantic  lagoon 
(Sinepuxent  Bay),  was  also  a  fertile  oyster  field  until  its  inlet 
from  the  ocean  was  closed  by  drifting  sand. 

The  Bay  has  always  swarmed  with  excellent  food-fish  which 
could  be  readily  caught  by  the  boat-load.  On  account  of  the 
variation  in  salinity  from  the  middle  of  the  Bay  toward  its  head, 
there  is  opportunity  for  many  different  varieties  to  find  the  kind 
of  water  which  they  like  best;  but  the  shad  and  herring  attract 
most  notice  because  in  spring  they  press  up  the  rivers  to  spawn 
in  fresh  water  and  therefore  are  caught  with  exceptional  ease. 
Moreover,  being  seasonal  fish,  the  catch  of  them  can  be  meas- 
ured with  more  exactness  than  is  possible  in  the  case  of  other 
fish.  The  Bay  ranks  above  every  other  United  States  locality  in 
the  catch  of  these  migrants. 


21  Shellfish  Commission  of  Md. :  Fourth  Report,  1912,  pp.  25-31.  Also 
Md.  Bureau  of  Statistics  and  Information :  Twenty-first  Annual  Report, 
Bait,  1912;  pp.  96-109.  The  (New)  Conservation  Commission  of  Maryland, 
in  First  Ann.  Rept.,  Bait.,  1916  (p.  6),  estimates,  however,  that  there  are 
600,000  acres  of  oyster  bottoms  in  Maryland,  "fully  half  of  which  produce 
oysters  naturally  in  paying  quantities." 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          39 

The  shad  ranks  as  one  of  our  most  delicious  fish.  Shad 
formerly  reached  the  head  of  the  Bay  in  large  numbers  and 
ascended  the  Susquehanna  for  a  long  distance,  but  in  recent  years 
the  great  catch  farther  down  the  Bay  has  sadly  reduced ,  the 
fishery  of  the  Susquehanna,  as  it  has  done  in  the  other  tribu- 
taries. The  industry  is  now  important  only  in  the  open  Bay  and 
the  lower  courses  of  the  larger  streams.  Formerly  the  upper 
reaches  of  every  little  tributary  were  visited  by  many  fish.23 

The  spawning  season  of  the  river  herring  is  somewhat  earlier 
and  shorter  than  that  of  the  shad.  The  herring  appear  in  enor- 
mous numbers,  and  the  large  catch,  coupled  with  the  short  season, 
makes  the  price  low.  This  is  a  food  supply  which  is  mostly 
disregarded.  In  its  fresh  condition  the  herring  is  too  bony  to 
be  very  desirable,  but  when  pickled,  the  bones  are  so  softened 
as  to  make  the  fish  excellent  eating.  In  recent  years  this  mode  of 
preparation  has  been  adopted  to  a  considerable  extent,  but  many 
fish  go  to  waste.  It  is  probable  that  canneries  could  make  good 
use  of  this  abundant  food. 

The  crab  fishery  has  developed  into  a  seasonal  supplement 
to  the  oyster  industry,  being  carried  on  largely  by  the  same  fisher- 
men, but  in  the  warmer  months  of  the  year  (April-October), 
when  the  oyster  is  spawning  and  demand  for  it  falls  off  on 
account  of  its  deterioration  in  quality.  Crabs  are  found  farther 
up  toward  the  head  of  the  Bay  than  are  oysters,  but  abound  most 
in  the  southern  waters  of  the  Eastern  Shore,  where  shallow 
grassy  areas  bordering  the  great  marshes  furnish  excellent  con- 
ditions for  their  food  and  shelter.  The  voracious  hard  crabs 
are  easily  caught  by  baited  lines ;  the  soft  crabs,  which  hide  dur- 
ing the  shedding  period  in  sand  or  grass  and  take  no  food,  are 
captured  by  hand  scoop-nets  or  by  scrapers  operated  from  sail- 
boats. The  Chesapeake  now  has  the  principal  fishery  of  our 
country. 

Cambridge  and  Oxford,  in  this  region,  are  the  chief  points 
of  supply  for  hard  crabs,  these  being  shipped  alive  from  Cam- 


23  Md  State  Board  of  Labor  and  Statistics :  Twenty-fifth  Annual  Report, 
Bait.,  1916;  p.  41.  Also  U.  S.  Commissioner  of  Fisheries:  Annual  Report, 
1915;  P-  21. 


40          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

bridge  to  various  cities,  while  the  meat  of  most  of  those  taken 
at  Oxford  is  canned.  Crisfield  and  Deal's  Island,  near  the  Vir- 
ginia line,  adjacent  to  the  largest  marshes,  supply  most  of  the 
soft  crabs,  Crisfield  being  the  largest  crab-shipping  point  in  the 
world.24  In  order  to  furnish  a  regular  supply,  "shedding-pens" 
are  now  built  in  the  grassy  waters,  and  hard  crabs  are  kept  there 
until  they  throw  off  their  old  shells. 

The  possibilities  for  extension  of  the  industry  are  great,  as 
the  demand  in  city  markets  is  growing,  but  the  supply  of  crabs, 
which  a  few  years  ago  seemed  unlimited,  is  becoming  somewhat 
depleted  in  the  most  frequented  fishing  grounds. 

The  oyster  fishery  of  Maryland  has  passed  through  the  same 
stage  of  wasteful  exploitation  that  has  characterized  the  develop- 
ment of  most  of  our  natural  resources.  Its  high-water  mark  was 
reached  in  1884,  when  15,000,000  bushels  were  taken.  This  was 
excessive  and  could  not  be  maintained.  By  overworking  the 
beds,  in  the  total  absence  of  any  regulation,  the  industry  grad- 
ually declined  until  in  1904  the  catch  was  only  4,500,000  bushels. 

The  State  authorities  saw  the  imperative  need  of  conserva- 
tion measures.  In  1906  a  Shellfish  Commission  was  created,  and 
in  the  next  six  years  surveyed  the  entire  field.  In  1912  existing 
laws  were  so  modified  as  to  greatly  encourage  oyster  planting 
upon  bottoms  leased  from  the  State.  These  measures  have  come 
none  too  soon  in  saving  this  valuable  industry.  Fortunately  it 
can  be  saved,  and  under  proper  regulation  a  permanent  supply 
more  than  double  Maryland's  present  yield  seems  possible  in  the 
near  future.25 

The  abundant  food  to  be  obtained  from  the  waters  of  the 
Bay  has  supported  and  still  supports  a  large  population.  No- 
where in  the  world,  probably,  does  the  fisherman  live  under  better 
conditions.  There  is  a  variety  of  products.  The  same  boat  can 
be  used  from  October  to  April  for  oystering,  from  May  to  Sep- 


44  (New)  Conservation  Commission  of  Md. :  First  Ann.  Kept,  sup.  cit, 
p.  21. 

"(New)  Conservation  Commission  of  Md. :  First  Ann.  Rept,  sup.  cit., 
P-  15- 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          41 

tember  for  crabbing,  and  at  any  odd  time  for  fishing.  For  the 
most  part,  the  fisherman  dwells  on  the  mainland,  where  fruit  and 
vegetables  can  be  raised  on  his  own  plot  of  ground,  but  even 
though  he  should  have  no  field  or  garden,  agricultural  produce  is 
abundant  and  cheap.  Fishing  has  enabled  many  spots,  which 
otherwise  would  have  been  deserted,  to  support  a  good  popula- 
tion. The  produce  of  fishing,  either  in  money  or  food,  is  often 
supplemented  by  hunting  the  wild-fowl  which  in  their  spring  and 
fall  migrations  seek  the  marshes,  or  by  trapping  the  muskrats 
which  abound. 

The  Maryland  fisherman's  life  therefore  is  not  one  of  grind- 
ing poverty.  An  industrious  man  need  have  few  fears  of  being 
unable  to  support  his  family  in  comfort  from  these  practically 
free  gifts  of  Nature.  It  is  a  healthy  and  independent  existence, 
with  a  nourishing,  varied  and  abundant  diet — a  life  tending  to 
develop  sturdiness  and  self-reliance.  The  waters  of  the  Bay, 
moreover,  are  so  protected  that  there  is  comparatively  little  dan- 
ger to  life  in  the  daily  fishing  toil. 

The  greatest  danger  to  the  prosperity  of  the  fishermen  comes 
from  the  wasteful  exploitation  of  the  products  of  the  Maryland 
waters  and  their  consequent  exhaustion.  This  is  a  grave  danger 
indeed.  We  have  seen  its  possibility  in  the  case  of  the  oyster. 
At  present  so  few  shad  escape  the  hedges  of  nets,  hundreds  of 
feet  long,  that  herd  them  into  "pounds,"  that  the  spawning- 
grounds  are  almost  deserted.26  Were  it  not  for  the  distribution 
of  fry  by  the  United  States  Fish  Commission,  shad  would  have 
been  almost  exterminated  by  the  prevention  of  spawning.  As 
it  is,  in  1913,  the  catch  of  shad  in  the  Chesapeake  Basin  was  the 
poorest  in  many  years,  and  the  United  States  Fish  Commis- 
sioner stated:  "The  shad  in  the  Chesapeake  Basin  is  doomed 
unless  the  States  take  radical  action  to  insure  the  survival  of 
at  least  a  small  percentage  of  the  run  of  spawning  fish."27  The 
statement  may  be  taken  to  apply  also  to  herring. 


*  (New)   Conservation  Commission  of  Md. :  First  Ann.  Kept.,  sup.  cit., 
p.  47. 

27  U.  S.  Fish  Commissioner's  Report  for  1913. 


42          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

3.     FOREST  INDUSTRIES. 

Almost  all  of  the  Coast  Plain  was  once  densely  wooded.  The 
descriptions  of  early  Maryland  are  full  of  references  to  the 
shaggy  forests,  both  lowland  and  upland.  These  at  the  time  of 
the  first  settlement  were  largely  of  deciduous  growth,  but  where 
sandy  soil  has  been  cleared  and  abandoned,  it  has  been  reforested 
by  seedlings  from  the  pine  trees  originally  mixed  with  the  pre- 
vailing deciduous  forest. 

At  present  the  wheat  section  of  the  Eastern  Shore  has  been 
almost  cleared  of  forest,  but  so  much  woodland  remains  in  the 
southern  part  of  the  Eastern  Shore  and  all  through  Southern 
Maryland  that  the  Coast  Plain  as  a  whole  has  40  per  cent,  of  its 
area  wooded  and  far  exceeds  the  Piedmont  in  this  respect.28 
Southern  Maryland  is  the  higher  section  in  amount  of  timbered 
land  because,  since  the  Civil  War,  much  one-time  farmland  has 
grown  up  to  pine,29  and  because  protecting  forest  is  needed  in 
this  rolling  region  to  guard  against  slope  erosion.  The  lower 
part  of  the  Eastern  Shore,  however,  is  the  chief  lumber  region  of 
the  Plain. 

The  sandy  portions  now  have  as  their  chief  tree  the  loblolly 
or  "bull  pine,"  considered  by  the  State  Forester  to  be  "without 
doubt  the  most  important  timber  tree  of  the  State."30  It  grows 
quickly,  attaining  a  large  size  if  allowed  to  do  so,  and  because 
the  wood  is  strong,  though  coarse,  the  demand  for  it  is  great. 
More  of  it  was  cut  in  Maryland  in  1913  than  of  any  other  wood, 
the  total  quantity  of  it  being  65,000,000  board  feet.  The  larger 
sticks  are  almost  all  shipped  by  rail  to  the  Pennsylvania  anthracite 
region  to  furnish  mine  timber. 

In  the  swamp  occur  two  other  coniferous  trees  of  commer- 
cial importance.  The  bald  cypress  prevails  in  the  extreme  south, 
along  the  Pocomoke  River  and  its  tributaries,  though  the  best 
of  it  has  been  cut.  The  white  cedar  grows  principally  a  little 


28  Md.  Geol.  Sur. :  Report  on  the  Physical  Geography  of  Maryland,  sup. 
cit,  p.  250. 

28  Chrysler,  M.  A. :  "Ecological  Plant  Geography  of  Maryland,  Western 
Shore  District,"  in  Md.  Weather  Bureau,  sup.  cit,  Vol.  3,  p.  166. 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          43 

farther  north,  near  the  Delaware  line.  Near  the  swamps,  but  on 
firmer  ground,  flourishes  the  red  gum,  which  is  a  large  tree,  the 
chief  source  of  veneer  to  make  berry-boxes,  baskets  and  crates 
for  the  needs  of  the  great  truck  industry.  Pocomoke  City  and 
Salisbury  have  gained  much  of  their  importance  from  this  manu- 
facture. 

On  the  higher  clay  lands,  not  swampy,  but  full  of  moisture, 
the  white  oak  once  formed  dense  forests  of  large  extent,  and 
furnished  the  best  material  for  ship  construction  in  the  United 
States  before  iron  hulls  came  into  use.  As  early  as  1762,  ves- 
sels of  sixty  tons  were  being  built  at  Pocomoke  City.31  Until 
the  forests  near  the  town  were  exhausted,  the  chief  industry  of 
Cambridge  was  shipbuilding,  and  Vienna  on  the  Nanticoke  River 
was  also  famous.32  These  towns  still  retain  their  shipyards, 
though  activity  has  decreased  and  is  now  limited  to  construction 
and  repair  of  small  craft.  Staves  for  the  West  India  flour  bar- 
rels and  the  tobacco  hogsheads  were  once  produced  in  this  district 
in  large  amount,  and  the  white  oak  bark  was  tanning  material 
for  a  considerable  leather  industry,33  which  has  disappeared,  be- 
cause almost  all  of  the  oak  has  been  used. 

Since  the  more  valuable  deciduous  trees  of  Southern  Mary- 
land have  largely  been  culled  out,  the  forest  which  remains  is 
inferior  in  quality  to  that  already  described.  In  the  few  swamps 
which  exist  on  the  Western  Shore,  there  is  no  white  cedar  and 
very  little  cypress,  though  red  gum  is  abundant.  White  oak  has 
mostly  disappeared,  as  it  has  on  the  Eastern  Shore.  Loblolly 
pine  is  confined  to  a  limited  area  in  the  extreme  south,  a  fact 
which  probably  can  be  explained  only  by  a  slightly  more  severe 
climate  on  the  western  side  of  the  Bay  than  on  the  eastern.34 

The  sandy  portions  of   Southern   Maryland  are  occupied 


30  Md.  Weather  Bureau,  Vol.  3,  sup.  cit,  p.  367  (1910). 

31  Jones,  Elias:  "History  of  Dorchester  Co.,"  pp.  73  and  88  (1902). 
*  Maryland  Hist.  Mag.  3;  20  (1908). 

83  Gambrill,  J.  Montgomery:  "Leading  Events  of  Md.  Hist."  (1904),  p. 
241 ;  and  Ingraham,  Prentiss :  "Land  of  Legendary  Lore,"  sup.  cit.,  p.  232. 

34  Dr.  Roland  M.  Harper  has  noted  a  close  correspondence  in  the  Southern 
States  between  the  distribution  of  the  loblolly  pine  and  the  profitable  cultiva- 
tion of  cotton.  See  Maryland  Weather  Bureau :  sup.  cit.,  p.  298. 


44          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

mainly  by  scrub  pine,  which  is  inferior  in  size  and  value  to  the 
loblolly  pine  and  which  links  this  region  botanically  to  the  New 
Jersey  Coast  Plain  as  the  loblolly  does  to  the  Virginia  Plain. 

Timber  cutting  is  still  actively  proceeding  on  both  shores  of 
the  Bay.  The  production  is  much  reduced  from  that  of  ten  years 
ago,  even  though  inferior  woods  are  being  used.  Red  gum  is 
cut  in  increasing  quantity,  and  scrub  pine,  once  despised,  is  eag- 
erly sought  in  Southern  Maryland  as  pulpwood.  Some  of  the 
scrub  pine  is  used  as  piling,  for  which  the  large  extent  of  water 
front  being  improved  causes  a  great  demand,  but  most  of  the 
piling  is  of  oak.  There  are  still  some  tracts  of  valuable  timber 
in  Southern  Maryland  which  are  not  near  water  transportation 
and  are  so  far  from  the  railroad  that  the  cost  of  hauling  by 
animals  has  been  prohibitive;  but  with  the  advent  of  the  motor 
truck  these  tracts  will  soon  disappear.  There  is  much  cheap  land 
yet  in  the  Plain,  particularly  in  Southern  Maryland,  which  per- 
haps cannot  at  present  profitably  compete  in  agriculture  with 
other  land  but  which  under  careful  management  could  be  refor- 
ested or  could  have  its  existing  forest  conserved,  and  would  ulti- 
mately pay  a  good  interest  on  the  investment. 

ADDITIONAL  REFERENCES. 

Besley,  F.  W. :  "The  Forests  and  Their  Products,"  in  Md. 
Weather  Bureau,  Vol.  3,  p.  363  (1910). 

Md.  State  Board  of  Forestry:  Report  for  1914  and  1915. 
Bait,  1915. 

Besley,  F.  W. :  "The  Forests  of  Anne  Arundel  County." 
Bait,  1915. 

Besley,  F.  W. :  "The  Forests  of  Prince  Georges  County." 
Report  on  Prince  Georges  County,  Md.  Geol.  Sur.  Bait.,  1911, 
pp.  219-245. 

Mell,  C  D. :  "The  Forests  of  St.  Mary's  County,"  in  Md. 
Geol.  Survey.  Report  on  St.  Mary's  County,  Bait.,  1907,  pp. 
183-203. 

Curran,  H.  M. :  "The  Forests  of  Cecil  County,"  in  Md. 
Geol.  Survey:  Report  on  Cecil  County.  Bait.,  1902,  pp.  295-312. 

Zon,  Raphael:  "Chestnut  in  Southern  Maryland,"  U.  S. 
Bureau  of  Forestry,  Bull.  53,  Wash.,  D.  C.,  1904. 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          45 

4.  MINERAL  INDUSTRIES. 

Because  of  the  marine  origin  and  geologically  recent  date  of 
the  Coast  Plain  deposits,  the  mineral  resources  are  not  varied. 
Nature's  magic  heat  and  earth-movements  have  not  been  present 
to  transmute  and  combine,  and  only  the  commonest  and  least 
valuable  mineral  substances,  from  which  little  profit  is  derived, 
are  found. 

Clays  and  sands  occur  almost  everywhere.  The  clays  are 
best  exposed  in  the  erosion-trenched  region  of  Southern  Mary- 
land, and  are  most  used  in  the  vicinity  of  Baltimore.  Almost 
every  variety  can  be  found,  suitable  for  every  purpose.  They 
furnish  a  considerable  part  of  the  material  for  Baltimore's 
brick-works  and  potteries.  The  clay-using1  industries  of  the 
city,  however,  are  not  increasing  their  product,  there  is  little  call 
for  clays  elsewhere  in  the  Plain,  so  the  market  is  at  present  lim- 
ited. The  sands  are  of  only  local  use  and  are  so  abundant  as  to 
be  but  little  prized.  The  iron-bearing  sands  and  gravels,  how- 
ever, by  their  cementing  power,  are  valuable  for  road-metal. 

Two  belts  of  marl  occur  in  the  Plain,  extending  parallel  to 
each  other  in  the  general  direction  of  the  Fall  Line.  The  south- 
ern one  stretches  from  the  southern  part  of  the  wheat  region  of 
the  Eastern  Shore  (Queen  Anne  and  Talbot  Counties)  through 
the  southern  part  of  the  Western  Shore  (Calvert  and  St.  Mary 
Counties).  It  is  a  shell  marl  and  not  very  valuable  except  for 
its  high  lime  content ;  therefore  it  has  not  been  used  to  any  large 
extent  even  upon  the  farms  where  it  occurs. 

The  other  marl  belt,  a  few  miles  to  the  north  of  that  just 
described,  is  far  greater  in  its  potential  fertility.  Its  marl  is  a 
"greensand,"  which  contains  a  high  proportion  (2^2  per  cent, 
maximum)  of  potash,  and  some  phosphoric  acid  and  lime.  Be- 
cause this  marl  lies  near  the  surface,  at  an  average  depth  of  about 
three  feet,  it  has  given  rise  to  a  special  type  of  soil,  the  Colling- 
ton,  which  is  fairly  fertile.  These  marls  resemble  in  many  re- 
spects the  famous  marls  of  New  Jersey,  which  have  been  exten- 
sively utilized  as  fertilizing  material  in  the  Coast  Plain  of  that 
3tate. 


46          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

As  a  fertilizer,  however,  the  Maryland  greensand  marls  are 
considerably  inferior  to  those  of  New  Jersey,  which  have  a  high 
content  of  phosphoric  acid  and  soluble  lime  in  addition  to  their 
potash.  The  New  Jersey  marls  probably  contain  fifty  times  as 
much  phosphoric  acid  as  do  the  Maryland  marls,  yet  even  the 
marl  of  New  Jersey  has  almost  gone  out  of  use  through  the  com- 
petition of  commercial  fertilizers.  It  is  extremely  doubtful, 
therefore,  whether  the  Maryland  greensand  marls  can  have  any 
important  future  as  a  commercial  product.  They  are  chiefly 
valuable  in  an  economic  sense  because  upon  the  Collington  soils 
derived  from  them  a  fertilizer  with  low  potash  content  can  be 
profitably  used;  but  where  cost  of  labor  and  transportation  is 
very  low,  these  marls  may  be  used  locally  to  change  the  texture 
of  heavy  soils  by  adding  a  sandy  component  which  gives  some 
increase  of  fertility.35 

Tripoli,  or  diatomaceous  earth,  composed  of  the  limy  skele- 
tons of  innumerable  microscopic  animals,  is  mined  at  one  spot 
on  the  Patuxent  River,  where  water  transport  is  available,  and 
is  also  found  along  the  Potomac.  It  is  used  in  water  filters, 
for  polishing  powder,  as  the  absorbent  material  for  dynamite, 
and  as  a  non-conducting  packing  similar  to  asbestos  The  prod- 
uct however  is  worth  only  $5000  annually,  and  as  there  is  abun- 
dance of  tripoli  elsewhere,  the  material  is  not  of  great  impor- 
tance. 

The  earliest  iron  mines  of  the  State  were  based  upon  car- 
bonate ores  obtained  from  the  belt  of  clays  which  extends  along 
the  Fall  Line.  Here  once  was  a  series  of  small  swamps,  formed 
by  a  slight  tilting  of  the  Plain  so  that  its  junction  with  the  Pied- 
mont was  depressed.  In  these  depressions  accumulated  iron 
deposits  brought  by  streams  and  reduced  to  carbonates  by  the 
action  of  carbon  dioxide  with  only  a  small  amount  of  oxygen 
present.  These  deposits,  though  worked  since  Colonial  days,  are 
still  ample  to  supply  a  great  industry,  but  in  this  era  of  cheap 


35  See :  Conservation  Commission  of  Md.  Report,  1008-1909.  Bait.,  1910; 
p.  61.  Md.  Geolog.  Survey:  Prince  Georges  County.  Bait.,  1911;  pp.  153- 
157.  Miller,  Benj.  Leroy:  U.  S.  Geolog.  Survey,  Choptank  Folio,  N'o.  182. 
Wash.,  1912;  p.  57. 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          47 

transportation  cannot  compete  with  the  richer,  more  easily  worked 
ores  of  Michigan,  Minnesota  and  Alabama.  The  only  furnace 
now  manufacturing  Maryland  ore,  however,  uses  this  iron.  It 
has  survived  its  many  associates  in  other  regions  of  the  State 
only  because  it  has  a  special  customer,  the  Federal  Government, 
which  desires  for  certain  purposes  the  extremely  tough  iron  which 
the  furnace,  situated  at  Arundel,  a  few  miles  from  Washington, 
can  produce  from  this  ore  by  the  old  charcoal  process.36 

Bog  iron  ore  or  limonite  exists  in  some  quantity  in  the 
south  of  the  Eastern  Shore,  where  sluggish  streams,  brown  with 
vegetable  infusion,  give  opportunity  for  oxidation  and  settle- 
ment of  the  iron  which  their  waters  have  dissolved  from  the 
sands  and  gravels  and  their  vegetable  matter  has  carbonated. 
The  bog  ore  contains  much  phosphorus,  which  makes  brittle  the 
derived  iron.  When  the  railroad  era  began,  however,  and  iron 
rails  were  called  for,  it  was  thought  that  even  this  ore  could  be 
used  to  advantage.  Some  ore  was  mined  along  a  branch  of  the 
Nanticoke  and  was  shipped  to  Baltimore,  and  in  1830  the  only 
furnace  ever  built  on  the  Eastern  Shore  was  established  on  a 
tributary  of  the  Pocomoke,  near  Snow  Hill,  but  after  twenty 
years  of  struggle  gave  up  the  endeavor  to  market  its  poor 
product.37 

One  of  the  largest  iron  and  steel  plants  in  the  United  States 
is  situated  in  Tidewater  Maryland,  at  Sparrows  Point  on  the 
Patuxent  ten  miles  from  the  center  of  Baltimore.  The  location 
of  this  Maryland  Steel  Company  was  not  determined,  however,  by 
the  occurrence  of  the  local  ore,  for  of  this  it  does  not  use  a 
pound,  but  was  fixed  by  the  embayment  of  the  region.  Its  sup- 
ply comes  from  the  hematite  of  Cuba,  and  the  plant  was  located 
on  tide-water,  where  it  could  receive  these  supplies  direct  by 
vessel,  could  ship  out,  if  need  be,  by  sea,  and  yet  could  have  the 
advantage  of  the  railroads  and  the  labor  supply  of  the  nearby 
city.38 

36  Md.   Geol.   and   Econom.   Survey :   Report  on  the   Iron   Ores   of   Md. 
Bait.,  1911 ;  p.  172. 

37  Md.  Geolog.  Sur. :  "Iron  Ores  of  Maryland,"  sup.  cit.,  pp.  227-231. 

38  Md.  Bureau  of  Statistics  and  Information,  2ist  Ann.  Rept.    Bait.,  1913; 
pp.  122,  123. 


48          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

5.     MANUFACTURING. 

Manufacturing  has  always  played  but  a  small  part  in  the 
life  of  the  Coast  Plain.  With  plenty  of  land  to  till,  and  plenty 
of  waters  in  which  to  fish,  the  people  have  not  felt  compelled  to 
crowd  together  into  cities.  Legislative  enactment  in  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries  strove  hard  to  create  towns,  but 
the  ease  of  making  a  living  from  the  bounty  of  nature  prevented 
towns  from  growing.  Even  today,  with  the  many  incentives  to 
development  of  large  communities,  the  largest  city,  Annapolis, 
with  less  than  nine  thousand  people,  has  few  manufactures  and 
is  almost  stationary  in  population,  deriving  its  importance  from 
being  the  capital  of  the  State,  the  seat  of  the  United  States  Naval 
Academy,  and  for  the  well-to-do  a  desirable  place  of  residence, 
mild  in  winter,  cool  in  summer,  beautiful  in  outlook  over  the 
water. 

Water-power,  which  has  located  so  many  industrial  estab- 
lishments, is  not  important  in  the  Plain.  The  small  elevation 
of  the  surface  and  the  ease  with  which  the  streams  cut  toward 
grade  have  decidedly  limited  the  amount  of  power  development. 
A  number  of  ponds  have  been  made  by  damming  the  streams 
above  tide-water,  but  the  power  derived  from  these  is  small  and 
has  been  applied  mainly  to  grist-mills,  which  are  mostly  disused 
since  improvements  in  transportation  lessened  their  local  impor- 
tance. The  rates  on  soft  coal  from  the  mines  of  West  Virginia, 
Maryland,  or  Pennsylvania  are  greater  to  points  in  the  Plain  than 
to  Baltimore  or  Philadelphia,  and  this  imposes  a  handicap  on  the 
establishment  of  manufacturing  industries. 

The  handicap  of  lack  of  fuel  and  water-power  might  be 
overcome  by  the  advantage  of  a  cheap  labor  supply,  such  as  has 
established  the  cigar-making  industry  in  the  German  agricultural 
districts  near  Philadelphia;  but  a  satisfactory  labor  supply  for 
large  manufacturing  is  hard  to  procure.  The  man  of  the  Plain 
is  by  heredity  an  outdoor  man,  and  living  is  still  so  cheap  that  he 
has  not  been  compelled  to  congregate  in  large  towns  and  earn  his 
bread  in  factories  operated  the  year  around. 

The  ease  of  getting  a  living  from  Nature's  bounty  in  the 
districts  adjoining  the  Bay  has  always  been  proverbial.  Both 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          49 

animal  and  vegetable  food  is  cheap  and  plentiful,  requiring  only 
intermittent  labor  to  secure  it.  Fish,  oysters,  crabs  and  wild-fowl 
are  yet  obtainable  by  the  exercise  of  a  small  amount  of  skill  and 
effort.  Small  game,  such  as  the  opossum,  the  rabbit,  the  squirrel 
and  the  muskrat,  furnish  a  considerable  amount  of  free  food. 
Land  is  cheap,  and  the  favorable  climate  permits  a  large  quantity 
and  variety  of  vegetable  food  to  be  produced  within  the  year. 
Wild  and  cultivated  berries  grow  well,  and  fruit-trees  can  be 
planted  about  even  the  poorest  home.  Fuel  is  still  supplied  from 
the  neighboring  woodlands. 

With  these  aids  from  natural  sources  it  is  possible  for  even 
discontinuous  work  to  make  possible  a  good  living  for  a  family. 
Lumbering,  fishing,  farming,  may  be  carried  on  in  an  inde- 
pendent manner  with  much  occasional  leisure.  The  life  of  the 
usual  dweller  in  the  Maryland  Plain  is  traditionally  one  of  con- 
siderable freedom,  of  work  which  may  be  laborious  and  expos- 
ing at  times,  but  which  is  comparatively  unhurried.  Economic 
pressure  due  to  high  standards  of  living,  to  artificial  and  ex- 
pensive amusements,  to  lack  of  opportunity  for  employment  or 
to  competition  arising  from  density  of  population,  has  not  been 
present  in  this  region. 

The  manufacturing  which  does  exist  is  not  concentrated 
into  large  establishments,  for  it  arises  from  local  resources  which 
are  widely  distributed.  Agriculture,  fishing  and  lumbering  fur- 
nish the  raw  material.  The  manufacturing  is  almost  all  upon  the 
Eastern  Shore.  Southern  Maryland  has  a  remarkably  small 
amount,  due  perhaps  to  the  conservatism  of  its  people. 

Canning  of  fruit,  vegetables  and  sea-food  is  by  far  the  most 
important  branch  of  industry.  The  canneries  are  numerous  on 
the  Eastern  Shore  and  scattered.  With  little  trouble  or  expense 
a  cannery  can  be  established  wherever  the  product  warrants  it; 
the  labor  employed  is  largely  unskilled  and  cheap,  and  can  be 
procured  without  much  difficulty;  the  product  is  non-perishable 
and  easy  to  transport.  It  is  not  necessary,  therefore,  for  the 
canning  industry  to  center  in  towns,  and  the  industry,  in  fact, 
does  largely  seek  the  raw  material. 

Canning  of  fruit  and  vegetables,  which  constitutes  the  bulk 


50          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

of  the  Plain's  canning,  is  a  strictly  seasonal  industry.  The  aver- 
age season  of  canneries  of  these  products  is  only  from  six  to  ten 
weeks,  and  one  of  the  largest  canneries  on  the  Eastern  Shore, 
handling  fruit  only,  is  open  for  but  three  or  four  weeks  each 
year  during  the  height  of  the  season.  The  dates  of  opening  and 
closing  the  factories  change  each  year  with  the  season,  and  even 
during  the  season  an  occasional  scarcity  of  material  may  cause  a 
stoppage  of  operations,  since  most  canneries  confine  themselves 
to  one  or  two  products,  tomatoes  being  favored  by  the  majority. 
The  Eastern  Shore,  with  some  assistance  from  the  Piedmont, 
cans  nearly  half  the  tomatoes  consumed  by  the  whole  United 
States.  Canning  of  sea-food,  mostly  oysters  and  crab-meat,  lasts 
through  a  longer  season  .than  that  for  fruit  and  vegetables,  but 
is  far  less  important.  In  1915  there  were  about  300  canneries 
in  the  Plain,  95  per  cent,  of  them  being  on  the  Eastern  Shore. 

The  supply  of  local  labor  is  not  sufficient  for  the  canneries, 
even  though  women  and  children  are  able  to  do  the  work.  This 
labor  is  considered  in  the  Plain  as  unsuitable  for  any  but  the 
lowest  class,  as  Poles  from  Baltimore,  Italians  from  Philadel- 
phia, and  negroes  from  Virginia  are  brought  into  the  canneries 
in  large  numbers  to  join  the  negroes  and  "poor  whites"  locally 
secured.  The  living  conditions  among  these  imported  laborers 
are  often  very  bad,  and  children  as  young  as  twelve  years  are  al- 
lowed by  law  to  be  employed.  Half  of  the  canneries  used  im- 
ported labor  in  I9I5.39 

Dependent  on  the  local  industries  are  many  lumber  mills 
and  wood-working  establishments,  which,  using  for  the  most 
part  local  material,  furnish  baskets,  boxes  and  crates  for  the 
products  of  farm,  fishery  and  cannery.  For  convenience  of 
transportation,  the  finished  product  being  bulky,  the  wood-work- 
ing establishments  are  usually  situated  in  towns,  and  to  approach 
the  source  of  supply  they  are  mostly  in  the  southern  part  of  the 
Shore,  where  pine  and  also  the  red  gum,  the  chief  veneer  wood 
for  basket  making,  abound.  Pocomoke  City,  near  the  Virginia 


39  Md.  Bureau  of  Statistics  and  Information,  24th  Ann.  Rept.    Bait,  1915; 
pp.  206-212. 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          51 

line,  is  the  chief  center  of  the  industry.  The  work  of  making 
the  small  baskets  is  easy,  and  many  women  and  children  take 
part  in  the  industry,  either  in  factories  or  in  the  home.  In  the 
southern  region  of  the  Shore  also  are  a  few  small  shipyards  to 
build  and  repair  small  vessels  for  the  coasting  and  Bay  trade. 

The  wages  offered  are  not  sufficient  to  tempt  many  local  men 
into  the  canning  and  basket-making  industries,  and  were  it  not 
for  women  and  children,  these  industries  would  be  seriously 
handicapped.  The  labor  available  from  women,  however,  has 
brought  a  new  industry  in  recent  years  to  the  southern  part  of 
the  Eastern  Shore,  where  population  is  fast  increasing.  Balti- 
more's greatest  manufacturing  industry  is  the  making  of  men's 
clothing,  and  the  manufacturers,  finding  that  cheap  labor  by 
women  is  obtainable  on  the  Eastern  Shore,  get  considerable  work 
done  in  the  most  thickly  populated  portions — Salisbury,  Cam- 
bridge, and  lesser  towns  in  the  same  counties.  Here  there  are 
many  little  factories  which  contract  with  the  Baltimore  firms  to 
make  shirts  and  overalls,  and  employ  the  local  women,  either  in 
the  factory  or  at  home.40 

Manufacturing  other  than  that  dependent  on  the  raw  ma- 
terial afforded  by  the  Plain  will  not  develop  fast  in  that  region. 
Nature  has  been  so  clement  that  economic  pressure  is  little  felt. 
Land  and  water  supplement  each  other  in  affording  many  free 
goods,  and  there  is  yet  plenty  of  ground  for  agriculture.  The 
average  white  man  of  the  Plain  is  his  own  master ;  the  negro  has 
never  proved  satisfactory  for  highly  organized  industry.  Tide- 
water Maryland  in  all  probability  will  long  remain  a  region  with 
few  and  simple  manufactures. 


40  Md.  Bureau  of  Statistics  and  Information,  24th  Ann.  Rept.    Bait,  1915; 
p.  203. 


VI.  TRANSPORTATION, 
i.  WATER  TRANSPORTATION. 

Although  the  Coast  Plain  of  Maryland  borders  upon  the 
Atlantic  for  about  forty  miles,  there  is  not  a  single  navigable  in- 
let now  open  within  that  distance.  Behind  the  barrier  beach 
stretches  a  continuous  lagoon,  connected  on  the  north  by  vari- 
ous waterways  with  Delaware  Bay,  and  opening  in  Virginia, 
through  Chincoteague  Inlet,  into  the  ocean;  but  transport  is 
naturally  small  upon  this  shallow,  isolated  body  of  water,  bor- 
dered by  marsh  on  one  side  and  sand-dune  on  the  other. 

Water  transportation,  however,  is  largely  utilized  in  the  life 
of  Tidewater  Maryland.  Chesapeake  Bay  puts  a  wide  ocean- 
river,  over  a  hundred  miles  long,  through  the  whole  heart  of  the 
region.  With  its  almost  numberless  branches,  inlets  and  bays  it 
furnishes  two  thousand  square  miles  of  navigable  water  and  gives 
an  interior  coast-line  which  rivals  in  extent  the  coast  of  Maine, 
and  is  far  more  protected. 

In  no  other  agricultural  district  of  such  importance  does 
the  steamboat  play  a  larger  part  than  it  does  in  the  Eastern  Shore. 
By  sentiment  and  custom,  even  more  than  by  convenience,  the 
face  of  the  Shore  is  still  set  toward  Baltimore.  Its  wheat,  its 
oysters,  its  fruit  and  vegetables  for  canning  purposes,  the  canned 
goods  themselves,  go  largely  to  that  city,  and  water  transport 
must  be  employed  to  get  them  there.  In  return  the  city  is  the 
great  supply  point  for  this  region.  Despite  the  large  rail  move- 
ment of  early  fruit  and  vegetables  northward,  and  the  consid- 
erable return  movement  of  freight,  Baltimore  still  dominates  the 
trade  and  thus  sustains  the  water-borne  traffic  of  the  Shore.41 

A  glance  at  the  map  of  the  Eastern  Shore  will  show  many 
districts,  largely  peninsular,  which  railroads  do  not  or  cannot  serve, 
because  of  the  isolating  influence  of  extensive  swamp,  broad  estu- 
ary or  indenting  bay.  To  the  very  door  of  the  inhabitants  of  such 
district  comes  the  steamboat.  At  over  150  wharves  OP  *he  Eastern 
Shore  steamboats  regularly  call.  Some  towns  of  fair  size  for  that 


"Andrews,  Frank:  "Inland  Boat  Service,"  Bull.  74,  U.  S.  Dept.  of  Ag. 
Dec.,  1914 ;  pp.  6,  7. 

(52) 


MAP   4.       STEAMBOAT   ROUTES   OF   TIDEWATER    MARYLAND.    ONLY  THE  PRINCIPAL  ROUTES  AND  WHARVES   ARE  INDI- 
CATED.      NOTE   THAT   A'L   ROUTES    CENTFR   ON    BALTIMORE. 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          53 

region  have  no  railroad  facilities  at  all.  Such  are  the  fishing  settle- 
ment of  Deals  Island  on  Tangier  Sound  (population  1000),  Rock 
Hall,  nearly  opposite  Baltimore  (800),  Tilghman,  farther  down 
the  Bay  (600),  and  Sharptown  on  the  Nanticoke  River  (700). 
Towns  of  this  size  do  not  exist  elsewhere  in  Maryland  without 
railroad  communication,  and  would  not  now  exist  on  the  Eastern 
Shore  were  it  not  for  the  steamboat.  There  are  six  large  estu- 
aries on  the  Eastern  Shore  which  cannot  be  closely  paralleled  by 
railroads,  but  which  are  served  by  regular  steamboat  lines,  one 
of  which  extends  across  the  Delaware  boundary  to  a  point  46 
miles  by  water  from  the  Chesapeake,  and  about  25  miles  in  a 
straight  line  from  Delaware  Bay.  These  lines  are  usually  able  to 
run  all  winter. 

In  Southern  Maryland,  which  has  direct  land  communica- 
tion with  both  Baltimore  and  Washington,  railroads  are  few  and 
offer  especially  poor  means  of  transport.  The  main  agricultural 
export  of  the  region,  tobacco,  reaches  its  market  by  water,  and 
the  general  depression  which  has  prevailed  there  since  the  Civil 
War  has  not  been  favorable  to  railroad  promotion.  To  most  of 
the  region  the  steamboat  is  even  more  important  than  it  is  on  the 
Eastern  Shore,  although  the  commerce  is  not  so  large.  The 
estuary  of  the  Potomac,  113  miles  long,  bounds  Southern  Mary- 
land in  two  directions,  and  affords  a  water  route  to  and  from 
Washington,  with  36  wharves.  The  Patuxent  estuary,  nowhere 
over  10  miles  from  the  Bay,  cuts  into  the  heart  of  the  district 
for  nearly  50  miles  of  navigation,  with  25  wharves.  Nowhere 
is  a  vessel  more  than  10  miles  from  the  Bay  as  it  plies  the 
Patuxent,  and  the  head  of  navigation  is  only  35  miles  from  Bal- 
timore. The  settlements  of  Southern  Maryland,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  Annapolis,  are  all  under  600  population,  and  many  of  the 
largest  of  these,  as  Leonardtown,  a  county  seat  on  the  Potomac, 
and  Solomons,  a  fishing  town  at  the  mouth  of  the  Patuxent,  are 
served  only  by  steamboat.  The  inconvenience  of  such  service  is 
great.  Fog,  storm,  or  extra  cargo  may  delay  for  hours  the  ar- 
rival of  the  steamboat  at  any  given  point.  In  winter  ice  may 
close  navigation  entirely  for  a  time,  Even  though  the  boat  should 


54          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

maintain  her  regular  schedule  and  be  punctual,  the  passenger 
often  cannot  avoid  being  landed  at  his  destination  late  at  night. 
To  travel  with  any  pleasure  on  these  lines  one  needs  to  be  pos- 
sessed of  great  patience. 

Beside  the  steamboat  lines  on  the  Bay,  with  their  regular 
service,  there  is  the  irregular  service  of  a  swarm  of  gasoline 
launches  and  sailing  vessels.  These  may  either  convey  freight 
to  and  from  steamboat  landings  or  make  independent  trips.  The 
gasoline  boats  are  even  more  useful  for  the  towing  of  barges  than 
they  are  for  the  direct  carrying  of  freight.  Sailing  craft  have 
not  disappeared  from  the  Bay  as  they  have  from  many  other 
waters,  since  they  can  be  used  for  fishing  in  addition  to  the  trans- 
port of  many  different  products  at  various  seasons  of  the  year. 

The  organization  of  the  steamboat  routes  tends  to  isolate 
from  each  other  the  two  divisions  of  the  Plain.  Though  steam- 
boat lines  serve  every  important  point  on  each  side  of  the  Bay, 
not  a  single  steamboat  crosses  the  Bay  south  of  Annapolis.  For 
over  one-third  of  the  plain  there  can  be  no  direct  water  communi- 
cation across  the  Bay,  except  by  a  special  charter  of  some  pri- 
vate vessel.  It  is  scarcely  probable  that  the  commercial  interests 
which  control  the  steamboat  lines  will  further  any  interference 
with  Baltimore  as  a  focus  of  these  lines,  and  the  separation  of 
the  two  regions  is  therefore  likely  to  continue.  At  present,  how- 
ever, this  separation  is  not  such  a  drawback  as  might  at  first  ap- 
pear, since  the  regions  are  not  necessarily  dependent  on  each 
other. 

Were  water  transportation  free  to  compete  with  that  by 
railroad,  the  population  of  much  of  the  Coast  Plain  would  prob- 
ably enjoy  extremely  favorable  freight  rates  for  the  products 
which  they  produce  and  consume ;  but  there  is  little  effective  com- 
petition. Two  great  railroad  and  steamboat  companies  practi- 
cally monopolize  the  Maryland  traffic  of  the  Bay.  They,  in  turn, 
are  controlled  by  a  third  railroad,  the  Pennsylvania.  All  but  a 
handful  of  the  wharves  along  the  Bay  and  its  tributaries  lie  in 
the  possession  of  this  powerful  combination.  Rival  companies 
have  met  with  little  success.  In  the  case  of  certain  largely  raised 
products,  as  wheat,  tomatoes  and  pears,  the  irregular  service  of 


MAP  5.      RAILROADS  OF  TIDEWATER  MARYLAND.      NOTE  THE    LACK    OF    GOOD    RAIL    FACILITIES    THROUGH    SOUTHERN 
MARYLAND    AND    IN    THE    SOUTHWEST    OF    THE    EASTERN    SHORE. 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          55 

individual  carriers  is  offered  to  the  producer  at  extremely  low 
rates  during  a  special  season,  but  this  occasional,  special  one- 
way competition  does  not  force  similar  rates  upon  the  strong 
regular -steamboat-railroad  lines,  and  many  shippers  are  slow  to 
offend,  by  seasonal  patronage  of  other  agencies,  the  carriers  on 
whom  they  must  depend  in  the  majority  of  instances.  The  Coast 
Plain,  therefore,  though  so  well  provided  with  water  routes,  has 
not  reaped  from  them  all  the  benefits  possible. 

2.  LAND  TRANSPORTATION. 

a.    RAILROADS. 

Tidewater  Maryland  has  the  advantage  of  two  great  rail- 
road routes  from  the  North  to  the  South.  One  of  these  runs 
from  the  North  along  the  backbone  of  the  Delaware-Maryland- 
Virginia  peninsula,  reaching  Norfolk  by  ferry,  thus  avoiding  both 
rivers  and  swamps;  the  other  follows  the  general  course  of  the 
Fall  Line  through  Baltimore  to  Washington.  Both  of  these 
routes  possess  advantages  conferred  by  ease  of  railroad  con- 
struction and  directness  of  line. 

So  long  as  water  transportation  reigned  supreme  on  the 
Shore,  Baltimore  was  necessarily  the  center  of  the  region's  trade 
interests;  now,  through  the  railroad,  the  inland  regions  of  the 
Shore  turn  in  their  trade  toward  the  North,  and  have  acquired 
a  wide-awakeness  which  may  be  ascribed  to  that  source.  There 
are,  it  is  true,  two  other  railroad  lines  on  the  Shore  which  cross 
the  peninsula  from  east  to  west  and  have  terminals  in  Baltimore, 
using  large  steamers  to  ferry  across  the  Bay,  but  these  are  of 
minor  importance.  They  are  "resort  lines,"  practically  with- 
out branches,  and  designed  primarily  to  induce  travel  to  the  sea- 
shore. The  more  northern  road  serves  the  middle  of  the  Shore 
and  ends  at  Rehoboth  Beach,  Delaware;  the  other  road  serves 
the  southern  part  of  the  Shore  and  ends  at  Ocean  City,  Mary- 
land. These  roads,  therefore,  do  not  divert  a  large  proportion 
of  the  inland  trade  to  Baltimore,  especially  as  both  of  them  are 
controlled  by  the  Pennsylvania  system.  The  Eastern  Shore  pro- 
ducer, though  he  can  by  them  gain  access  to  Baltimore  markets 


56          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

and  supplies  as  well  as  those  of  the  North,  does  not  secure  low 
freight  rates  by  their  presence,  and  the  bulk  of  the  Shore's  freight 
traffic  is  a  north-and-south  movement. 

The  extension  of  the  railroad,  now  part  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania system,  from  the  north  into  the  Eastern  Shore  has  enabled 
the  truck  industry  of  Maryland  to  attain  its  present  great  im- 
portance. Water  transportation  was  neither  sufficiently  swift 
nor  regular  to  allow  the  truck-grower  to  reach  distant  markets 
with  fresh  produce.  As  soon  as  the  railroad  was  available,  how- 
ever, Northern  cities  could  be  reached,  and  could  be  quickly  and 
regularly  supplied.  The  growth  of  trucking  has  been  the  cause 
of  the  Shore's  recent  development  and  prosperity. 

The  Eastern  Shore,  it  is  seen,  is  fairly  well  supplied  with 
railroads.  Every  important  town  is  touched  by  railroad,  and  sev- 
eral of  the  towns  have  the  service  of  two  roads.  The  most  con- 
siderable extent  of  country  untouched  by  railroad  is  that  lying 
between  Cambridge  and  Princess  Anne  and  bisected  by  the  Nan- 
ticoke  River.  Here  is  much  fertile  land,  but  great  marshes  will 
probably  prevent  any  railroad  construction  for  many  years  to 
come.  A  few  other  links  obviously  remain  to  be  built,  but  prob- 
ably will  not  be  undertaken  in  the  near  future,  as  the  territory  is 
already  well  covered  in  general,  and  there  is  no  competition  to 
force  new  construction. 

While  the  Eastern  Shore  has  the  good  fortune  to  lie  along 
one  of  the  main  railway  routes  of  the  country,  Southern  Mary- 
land lies  to  one  side  of  the  main  currents  of  traffic.  Though  two 
great  railroad  lines,  the  Pennsylvania  and  the  Baltimore  and 
Ohio,  pass  along  its  western  edge,  the  body  of  the  region  is 
apart  from  their  influence.  South  of  Annapolis  the  bulk  of 
Southern  Maryland  has  been  little  developed  by  railroad  and 
consequently  has  not  developed  in  fruit-raising,  trucking  or  dairy- 
ing, which,  in  the  absence  of  a  canning  industry  to  absorb  their 
product,  must  have  frequent  and  rapid  transportation. 

A  resort-line  of  little  importance  extends  from  Washington 
to  Chesapeake  Beach,  a  summer  colony  on  the  Bay.  A  branch 
of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  does  extend  through  the  western 
part  of  the  region  to  a  village  on  the  Potomac  and  throws  off  a 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          57 

sub-branch  directed  toward  Point  Lookout  at  the  mouth  of  the 
same  river;  but  the  Potomac  terminal  exists  mainly  to  serve  a 
summer  resort  on  the  Virginia  side,  and  the  sub-branch  ends  "in 
the  air,"  stopping  at  a  small  town,  and  having  no  water  terminal 
or  junction  with  other  railroads.  Service  on  all  these  roads  is 
slow  and  poor,  and  the  region  they  attempt  to  serve  is  thinly 
settled  and  neither  increasing  in  population  nor  prosperity.  The 
present  stagnation  of  Southern  Maryland  calls  for  some  transpor- 
tation development,  but  relief  at  present  seems  likely  to  come 
only  through  the  extension  of  good  highways. 

b.   ROADS. 
Early  History. 

Maryland  was  settled  from  the  water,  and  land-roads  were 
subordinate  to  waterways.  The  large  plantations  had  each  its 
wharf,  where  vessels  from  over-seas  could  discharge  cargo. 
Each  estate  produced  most  of  its  own  food,  and  supplied  its 
other  needs  from  articles  brought  to  its  door  by  visiting  ships. 
Tobacco  was  practically  the  only  export  of  the  colony's  early  days, 
and  this  was  sent  abroad  directly  from  the  plantation  wharves. 
Export  and  import,  therefore,  were  by  water. 

For  trade  and  communication  within  the  colony,  waterways 
were  almost  exclusively  utilized.  There  was  little  heavy  freight 
that  needed  to  be  carried  by  land.  Travel  was  quicker,  easier 
and  safer  along  the  rivers  and  across  the  inlets  than  it  was  by 
winding  tracks  through  the  thick  forests. 

During  the  first  century  of  Maryland's  existence,  there- 
fore, water  routes  completely  overshadowed  land  routes,  and 
roads  were  few.  Until  about  1700  there  were  no  towns  upon 
which  roads  could  concentrate.  As  late  as  1733  "a  considerable 
number  of  people"  in  a  neck  of  land  in  the  southern  part  of  the 
Eastern  Shore  (Dorchester  County)  petitioned  to  have  a  road 
cut  out  of  the  peninsula,  for  all  their  ingress  and  egress  hitherto 
had  been  by  water.42  After  1730,  however,  with  the  spread  of 


*  Court  Records,  Dorchester  Co.,  Md.,  Nov.,  1733 ;  p.  241 ;  quo.  in  Gould, 
Clarence  P.:  "Money  and  Transportation  in  Md.,  1720-1765."  J.  H.  Univ. 
Stud.  33:  I  (1915)  ;  P-  I2Q. 


58          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

population  inland,  increased  communication  with  other  colonies, 
and  the  development  of  the  "back  country,"  the  Piedmont,  new 
roads  were  rapidly  opened,  and  some  much-traveled,  if  not  well- 
kept,  main  roads  developed. 

The  roads  of  greatest  note  were  naturally  those  on  the  route 
connecting  the  North  with  the  South,  Pennsylvania  with  Virginia. 
These  focused  upon  Annapolis,  because  Annapolis  was  the  only 
considerable  town  of  Maryland.  Travelers  from  Philadelphia 
had  their  choice  of  two  routes  to  Annapolis,  one  on  each  shore  of 
the  Bay. 

There  was  a  main  road  on  the  Eastern  Shore  extending  the 
full  length  of  the  peninsula,  but  it  was  mostly  locally  traveled  be- 
low the  latitude  of  Annapolis.  The  bulk  of  long-distance  travel 
turned  aside  to  Chestertown  on  the  Chester  River,  whence  one 
might  continue  along  that  "neck"  to  Rock  Hall  on  the  Bay  and 
sail  across ;  but  the  more  popular  route,  entailing  a  shorter  cross- 
ing of  the  Bay,  was  that  which  ferried  over  the  Chester  River, 
then  turned  west  to  Love  Point  on  Kent  Island  opposite  Annapo- 
lis. 

The  Western  Shore  road  passed  by  the  heads  of  the  Elk  and 
the  Northeast  estuaries,  across  the  mouth  of  the  Susquehanna  and 
around  the  head  of  the  Patapsco,  where  Baltimore  (founded 
1729)  was  slowly  emerging  from  obscurity.  This  is  the  pres- 
ent route  of  the  railroad  trunk  lines.  From  Annapolis  one  south- 
ward road  led  to  the  Potomac  opposite  Alexandria,  for  Wash- 
ington was  not  yet  in  existence;  another  took  the  direct  route 
south  and  crossed  the  Potomac  at  Pope's  Creek,  where  a  rail- 
wal  line  ends  today.43 

If  we  substitute  modern  Baltimore  for  ancient  Annapolis 
as  a  focal  point,  we  see  that  these  early  roads  have  fixed  the 
present  locations  of  steamer  lines  and  railways.  This  is  most 
marked  as  to  railways  in  Southern  Maryland,  but  on  the  Eastern 
Shore  the  crossing-places  of  the  old  "post  road"  over  the  estu- 


43  Gould,   Clarence   P.:   "Money  and  Transportation   in  Maryland,"  sup. 
cit,  pp.  136-138. 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          59 

aries  are  still  the  termini  of  steamboat  routes.  Love  Point  is 
the  beginning  of  a  railroad  line  to  which  frequent  ferry-boats 
run  across  the  Bay,  but  Rock  Hall  has  been  kept  from  its  simi- 
lar natural  destiny,  and  is  served  only  by  steamer,  for  fear  of 
killing  the  prosperity  of  Chestertown,  the  little  metropolis  of  the 
northern  Eastern  Shore. 

One  important  set  of  early  roads  on  the  Eastern  Shore  did 
not  lead  to  the  establishment  of  railways.  These  roads  were 
"portage"  roads,  running  east  and  west  between  the  heads  of 
navigation  on  the  tributaries  of  the  Chesapeake  and  those  adja- 
cent along  Delaware  Bay  and  the  Atlantic  lagoons.  There  were 
roads,  ranging  from  five  to  thirteen  miles  in  length,  between  the 
Bohemia,  the  Sassafras,  the  Chester,  the  Choptank,  the  Nanticoke 
and  the  Pocomoke  Rivers  on  one  side  and  the  winding  Delaware 
creeks  and  Sinepuxent  Bay  on  the  other  hand.  Although  much 
merchandise  went  over  these  roads  before  the  advent  of  the  loco- 
motive, they  did  not  conform  to  the  general  railroad  scheme  on 
the  Eastern  Shore.  They  were  merely  incidental  to  water  routes, 
whereas  the  railroad  aimed  to  make  water  transport  secondary 
to  that  by  land.  Therefore  the  hamlets  which  the  portage  roads 
served  continue  for  the  most  part  to  lie  a  little  aloof,  in  gentle 
oblivion,  from  the  railroad  which  occupies  the  watershed  of  the 
peninsula. 

The  old  nprth-and-south  main  roads  of  Maryland  have  fit- 
ted into  the  general  arrangement  of  railroad  travel  today,  and 
the  routes  which  they  indicated  have  largely  been  followed;  but 
the  old  east-and-west  roads,  laid  out  with  equal  conformity  to 
topographic  conditions,  show,  by  their  failure  to  control  railroad 
building,  the  present-day  subordination  of  transportation  by 
water  to  that  by  rail. 

Present  Development. 

Until  1905,  the  State  of  Maryland  took  no  part  in  road 
building.  The  county  was  the  unit  of  the  road  system,  so  that 
local  conditions  governed  highway  administration  and  con- 
struction. The  Eastern  Shore  in  1905  was  far  in  advance  of 


60          Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

Southern  Maryland  as  to  roads.  Its  population  was  denser  on  the 
whole,  its  condition  more  prosperous,  and  the  nature  of  its 
agriculture  demanded  that  large  amounts  of  material  should 
be  hauled  to  railroad  stations,  to  wharves,  to  canneries,  with 
quickness  and  constancy. 

The  main  highways  had  all  been  surfaced,  mostly  with 
oyster  shells,  which  were  procurable  nearby  in  considerable 
quantity  and  were  cheap.  A  shell  road  is  easily  constructed,  and 
is  a  good  though  not  lasting  highway  for  horse-drawn  vehicles, 
but  the  sharp  edges  of  the  shells  cut  automobile  tires  so  that 
stone  or  concrete  roads  are  beginning  to  be  demanded.  The 
State  has  built  a  considerable  extent  of  concrete  road  in  the 
northern  part  of  the  Shore,  but  high  railroad  freight  rates  have 
so  deterred  the  counties  disposed  to  use  broken  stone  for  roads 
that  it  is  probable  the  shell  road  will  for  some  time  continue  to  be 
the  characteristic  improved  road  of  the  region. 

Southern  Maryland  has  long  been  noted  for  its  poor  roads. 
Its  hilly  character  causes  much  greater  erosion  of  highways  than 
on  the  Eastern  Shore.  In  many  places  the  roads  have  sunk  in 
this  manner  several  feet  below  the  general  surface  and  the 
narrow  wagon-track  is  flanked  on  each  side  by  deep  ditches. 
Such  roads,  very  dangerous,  and  often  too  narrow  for  vehicles  to 
pass,  are  great  hindrances  to  ease  of  traffic,  but  the  region,  con- 
servative in  agriculture,  rather  scattered  in  population,  and  not 
at  all  prosperous,  made  little  effort  to  improve  its  highways. 
The  general  absence  of  good  railway  service  has  made  the  poor- 
ness of  the  roads  even  more  to  be  regretted  and  has  greatly  tended 
to  maintain  the  isolation  of  the  Western  Shore.  Even  after  State 
aid  had  considerably  increased  road-improvement  throughout 
most  parts  of  Maryland,  this  region  remained  so  inactive  as  not 
to  receive  much  help  from  that  source.  Since  1910,  however, 
when  the  State  began  construction  of  improved  roads  upon  its 
own  account,  Southern  Maryland  has  decidedly  benefited.  The 
new  highways,  with  the  consequent  opportunity  offered  for  the 
use  of  motor  vehicles,  appear  to  give  the  most  promising  chance 
for  immediate  development  of  this  backward  region. 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          61 

Possible  Effect  Upon  Population  Distribution. 

A  considerable  portion  of  the  population  of  Tidewater 
Maryland,  however,  does  not  live  directly  along  the  public  roads. 
This  is  due  to  the  peculiar  topographic  condition  presented  by  this 
embayed  coast  plain.  Its  partial  drowning  causes  the  formation 
of  many  peninsulas  or  "necks,"  each  of  which  has  many  smaller 
necks  extending  at  right  angles  to  its  main  axis.  Necessarily  a 
main  road  runs  along  the  main  axis  where  the  surface  is  undis- 
sected  and  level,  but  there  is  usually  space  and  need  for  only  one 
such  road.  Short  sub-roads  extend  from  the  main  road  to  the  few 
steamboat  landings,  but  the  isolated  farm  houses  usually  lie  by 
choice  and  tradition  far  back  from  the  main  road,  along  the 
water  front,  and  are  served  by  a  long  private  lane. 

As  agriculture  comes  to  appreciate  the  vital  necessity  of 
having  swiftness  and  ease  of  road  transport,  and  as  motor  ve- 
hicles come  into  greater  use  on  the  farm,  there  is  a  great  prob- 
ability that  the  farm  population  will  be  drawn  toward  the  road 
instead  of  maintaining  its  present  situation  remote  from  it  in  so 
many  cases.  A  considerable  portion  of  the  people  of  Tidewater 
Maryland  would  thus  be  changed  from  water-front  dwellers  to 
roadside  dwellers,  and  the  movement  would  mark  one  more  vic- 
tory of  the  land  road  over  the  waterway. 

REFERENCES. 

Md.  Geological  Survey,  Vol.  3,  1899;  Vol.  4,  1902;  Vol.  6, 
1906;  Vol.  8,  1909;  Vol.  9,  1911. 

Gould,  Clarence  P. :  "Money  and  Transportation  in  Mary- 
land, 1720-1765."  J.  H.  Univ.  Studies  33:  I  (1915). 


VII.  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  BAY  AND  FUTURE 
DEVELOPMENT. 

Through  the  whole  fabric  of  the  economic  history  of  Tide- 
water Maryland  runs  the  influence  of  the  Bay.  Despite  man's 
efforts  to  render  himself  superior  to  physical  controls,  the  em- 
bayment  of  the  Plain  still  profoundly  affects  his  individual  activ- 
ities and  the  course  of  the  region's  development. 

The  Bay  carves  away  old  land  and  forms  new;  it  modifies 
extremes  of  climate  and  so  favors  agriculture ;  it  gives  the  fisher- 
man a  bountiful  harvest,  whose  treasures  feed  many  persons  out- 
side the  region  and  add  to  the  ease  of  living  in  the  tidewater 
country ;  it  opens  water  roads  far  inland  and  gives  a  variety  and 
a  picturesqueness  of  aspect  which  otherwise  would  be  lacking. 
But  picturesque  and  interesting  as  is  the  Bay,  we  must  recognize 
that  in  regard  to  industrial  evolution  it  is  now  a  limiting  rather 
than  an  assisting  factor. 

Once  the  embayment  of  the  land  was  an  aid  to  communica- 
tion; now  it  is  a  limitation.  Man  at  present  counts  distance  in 
hours  rather  than  miles,  and  any  slow  method  of  travel  is  a  loss 
to  industry.  In  speed,  in  punctuality,  in  frequency  of  service, 
the  steamboat  is  immeasurably  inferior  to  the  railroad  train.  The 
waterways  of  the  Bay  limit  the  use  of  both  train  and  automobile. 

Once  the  embayment  was  an  aid  to  rapid  increase  of  popu- 
lation ;  now  it  is  a  limitation.  When  the  land  lay  wild  and  there 
were  few  roads,  plantations  quickly  sprang  up  along  the  water's 
edge  and  settlers  hastened  to  make  their  homes  on  the  estuaries. 
No  colony  except  Virginia  could  equal  Maryland  in  offering 
smooth  water  roads,  along  which  the  boundaries  of  civilization 
could  be  extended.  Now  the  East  is  subdued  to  man's  hand  and 
inland  agriculture  flourishes.  Were  the  Bay  turned  into  dry 
land  of  the  same  fertility  as  the  rest  of  the  region,  it  would  sup- 
port an  agricultural  population  many  times  as  great  as  that  which 
fishing  and  its  allied  industries  can  ever  support. 

As  agriculture,  under  favorable  circumstances,  supports  a 
denser  population  than  does  fishing,  so  manufacturing  supports 
a  denser  population  than  does  agriculture.  The  trade  of  Tide- 
water Maryland  is  largely  with  two  industrial  centers — first,  Bal- 

(62) 


Tidewater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain          63 

timore,  second,  Philadelphia,  with  its  attendant  cities,  Chester  and 
Wilmington.  These  are  highly  developed  in  manufacturing,  hav- 
ing a  great  variety  of  industries,  many  of  which  are  large  and 
long  established.  They  possess,  moreover,  advantages  of  trans- 
portation by  both  land  and  water  and  a  large  supply  of  skilled 
labor,  and  have  a  cheaper  freight  rate  on  coal  than  does  the 
Maryland  Plain.  Like  immense  fortresses  they  stand  on  the 
border  of  the  Tidewater  region  to  dominate  the  manufacturing 
situation.  New  plants  tend  to  seek  place  within  them  or  in  their 
immediate  neighborhood.  Except  in  the  case  of  the  canning  in- 
dustry, which  is  dependent  on  local  raw  material,  the  manufac- 
tures of  the  Maryland  Plain  will  therefore  probably  long  be 
small  and  of  merely  local  importance.  A  vital  element  of  manu- 
facture, moreover,  is  transportation,  and  modern  transport  is  not 
based  on  inland  waterways.  It  is  significant  of  modern  economic 
life  that  the  great  manufacturing  city  which  dominates  Tide- 
water Maryland  is  situated  at  the  very  limit  of  tidewater,  not  on 
the  main  bay.  Although  Baltimore  thrives  on  the  trade  of  the 
Chesapeake,  she  stands  at  its  boundary,  where  railroads  have  a 
freer  range;  she  pities  her  former  rival,  Annapolis,  which  is  a 
true  child  of  the  Bay,  but  being  so,  lacks  the  facilities  for  the 
spread  of  railroads  which  Baltimore  possesses  in  her  hinterland. 

The  Bay,  then,  is  a  powerful  present  factor  in  restricting 
Tidewater  Maryland  to  a  more  retarded  or  simpler  type  of  in- 
dustrial development  than  its  situation  near  great  centers  of 
population  would  otherwise  warrant.  As  fishing  and  agriculture 
are  the  main  primary  occupations,  the  people  are  rural,  not  ur- 
ban. Though  some  of  the  urban  communities  are  growing  rather 
rapidly,  it  is  not  likely  that  large  cities  will  arise  in  any  near 
future,  because  the  Bay  interferes  with  the  centering  of  railroad 
lines.  A  simpler  type  of  industry,  a  lower  density  of  population, 
are  the  consequences  of  the  embayment.  It  fosters  the  leisurely 
life  that  goes  with  the  canal  and  the  steamboat,  as  opposed  to  the 
clanging  haste  of  the  railroad. 

Although  the  Bay  has  to  a  considerable  extent  restricted  the 
modern  development  of  the  Tidewater  region,  it  must  not  be 
thought  that  the  Plain  need  lack  prosperity.  By  its  favorable 


64  Tideu'ater  Maryland — An  Embayed  Coast  Plain 

market  situation,  level  surface,  diversified  soil,  and  mildness  of 
climate,  to  which  the  Bay  contributes,  Tidewater  Maryland  is 
eminently  fitted  to  fulfill  a  great  agricultural  destiny. 

The  natural  resources  of  the  Plain  will  never  support  a  great 
mineral  industry.  The  growth  of  lumbering,  even  under  the  best 
management,  is  distinctly  limited.  The  oyster  industry,  the  back- 
bone of  the  fisheries,  can  merely  double  its  present  moderate 
sizek  and  other  branches  of  fishery  can  be  kept  up  only  by  great 
efforts  in  conservation.  Agriculture,  however,  has  practically 
unlimited  possibilities  for  the  near  future.  The  city  hives  of 
industry  within  easy  reach  give  an  unsurpassed  market,  with  ex- 
pansion as  the  urban  communities  continue  to  grow. 

The  capabilities  of  Tidewater  Maryland's  varied  soils  have 
been  demonstrated,  but  only  partially  utilized.  Here  the  general 
farmer,  the  orchardist,  the  stockman,  the  dairyman,  and  the 
trucker  can  each  find  a  place  for  profitable  industry.  The  wheat 
and  corn,  the  peaches  and  pears,  the  cattle,  hogs  and  sheep,  the 
milk,  cream  and  butter,  the  canteloupes  and  watermelons,  straw- 
berries, tomatoes  and  sweet  corn  of  certain  parts  of  this  region 
are  all  in  great  modern  demand  and  are  susceptible  of  tremen- 
dous increase  by  good  agricultural  methods.  With  better  farm- 
ing, and  an  extension  and  thorough  co-ordination  of  both  land 
and  water  transport,  Tidewater  Maryland  will  be  one  of  the 
choicest  agricultural  sections  of  our  continent. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


LD  21-100m-12,'46(A2012sl6)4120 


YD  06294 


3812G9 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


I 


